Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Franklin (Liner Notes) offers a vivid narrative of Isabella Stewart Gardner's evolution into a pioneering art collector and museum founder. New Yorker Isabella marries wealthy Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner in 1860 at age 19. The straitlaced Jack appreciates his unpredictable wife's intellect and creativity, though she gets a cold reception from Boston's well-heeled matrons. A year later, Isabella considers the "sad magic to being female, a disappearing of the self," and hopes that motherhood will win her social acceptance and help provide the sense of purpose she craves. Instead, her only child dies of pneumonia before he turns two, and a subsequent miscarriage leaves her unable to conceive again. During a lengthy stay in Europe, Jack hopes to ease her paralyzing grief. There, she meets Henry James, Oscar Wilde, and other luminaries who encourage her love of learning and passion for the arts. Isabella's confidence deepens--and her reputation for eccentricity grows--as she begins to acquire artworks for the museum she opens in 1903. The novel brims with pitch-perfect period details, such as Isabella's ability to shock New England society merely by wearing blue shoes, and Franklin cannily captures Gardner's ambition, independence, and quirks. Fans of strong female protagonists and Gilded Age historicals will enjoy this. Agent: Esmond Harmsworth, Aevitas Creative Management. (Apr.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In her sophomore adult novel (following Liner Notes), YA novelist (The Half-Life of Planets) and poet Franklin (Tell Me How You Got Here) tells the life story of Isabella Stewart Gardner, from her marriage in 1861 to Jack Gardner, a member of Boston's "High Society," through her death in 1924. Isabella (or Belle) was an heiress from New York whose father bequeathed her a fortune in 1891 that enabled her to build a house that became a museum and to purchase art for it. In the novel, her struggle to find a place in Boston society is hampered by her outspokenness and interest in subjects generally reserved for men. After the death of her son, Belle falls into a deep depression that inspires Jack to take her to Europe. The trip reawakens her to life, and she begins her exquisite collections, first of rare books and then fine art, especially paintings. She befriends many artists and intellectuals and travels abroad frequently; her growing collections soon necessitate the building of a new larger home, which would become the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, an idiosyncratic reflection of the collector's tastes and life. VERDICT Franklin's lyrical, erudite style befits Belle and grabs readers' attention. Pairs well with Ulrich Boser's The Gardner Heist, a nonfiction title about Gardner's fabulous collection and the famous unsolved robbery at the museum in 1990.--Vicki L. Gregory
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A fictionalized telling of the life of American art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose story resounds with contemporary themes. Despite her efforts, recently married Isabella can't fit into Boston's high society. Her humor is too brash, her fashion is never au courant, and, most damnable of all, she's not content to sit around with the ladies while the men get to discuss literature and art. Isabella's early married life is marked by tragedy--first she takes a long time to conceive, then she loses her 2-year-old to pneumonia and, shortly after, suffers a miscarriage that leaves her permanently unable to get pregnant. These compounding tragedies push Isabella even further out from Boston's elite inner circle--after all, how can a woman in the mid-1800s hope to belong to high society if she's not even a mother? But in spite of these tragedies (or, perhaps, because of them?), Isabella is more determined than ever to find her place. With her husband, Jack, Isabella sets off on a European voyage during which she meets a host of famous artists and authors, thus launching her life's passion: collecting people and their work. Isabella's correspondence with those we now know as greats (Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and Oscar Wilde, to name a few) are delightfully sprinkled throughout the novel. Historians may bristle at Franklin's choice to present as true aspects of Isabella's life that others have merely speculated about, such as her possible affair with author F. Marion Crawford. Nonetheless, Franklin paints an engaging portrait of a bold yet vulnerable woman whose feminist determination will certainly appeal to contemporary readers, as will her desires for belonging, acceptance, and the often elusive quest to lead a life of purpose: "Is it wrong for a woman to want more?…Oh, how I want and want and want--to study the library arches and entertain and feel myself integral to the world as though I am the walls of a house." A perennial tale of a woman fighting for her place in a man's world. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
