Description:

*New York Times *bestselling author Sena Jeter Naslund explores the artistic processes and lives of creative women in her groundbreaking literary opus *The Fountain of St. James Court; or Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman*. Sena Jeter Naslund's inspiring novel-within-a-novel depicts the lives of both a fictional contemporary writer and a historic painter whose works now hang in the great museums of Europe and America. The story opens at midnight beside a beautifully illumined fountain of Venus Rising from the Sea. Kathryn Callaghan has just finished her novel about painter Élisabeth Vigée-LeBrun, a survivor of the French Revolution hated for her sympathetic portraits of Marie Antoinette. Though still haunted by the story she has written, Kathryn must leave the eighteenth-century European world she has researched and made vivid in order to return to her own life as an American in 2012. Naslund's spellbinding new novel presents the reader with an alternate version of The Artist: a woman of age who has created for herself, against enormous odds, a fulfilling life of thoroughly realized achievement. ** ### From Booklist In a lively and pointed variation on James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, popular and conceptually adventurous Naslund (Adam & Eve, 2010) portrays two women artists in a novel-within-a-novel. Successful writer Kathryn Callaghan lives in present-day Louisville, Kentucky, in a lovely, old neighborhood surrounding a fountain depicting “Venus Rising from the Sea,” a graceful embodiment of the novel’s inquiry into the obstacles confronting women artists. Battered by her third divorce yet buoyed by her neighbors and friends, Kathryn completes a novel about the brilliant and resolute French painter Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755–1842). After surviving childhood loss and a disastrous marriage to become a renowned portraitist, Élisabeth is forced into exile for her friendship with Marie Antoinette (the subject of Nasland’s novel, Abundance, 2006). It’s a challenge to match the powerfully rendered drama of Élisabeth’s historic struggles with Kathryn’s subtler suffering, and Naslund—who has Kathryn admire Virginia Woolf while striving to write “accessible” fiction—veers into contrivance and sentimentality. Still, this is an incisive and keenly pleasurable novel about women artists overcoming adversity to create “joyful work” that celebrates life’s beauty and wonder. --Donna Seaman ### Review “[A] lively and pointed variation on James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man…this is an incisive and keenly pleasurable novel about women artists overcoming adversity to create “joyful work” that celebrates life’s beauty and wonder.” (Booklist on THE FOUNTAIN OF ST JAMES COURT) Sena Jeter Naslund’s eloquent language, her mastery of technique have the power to transport readers from the inner turmoil of a successful contemporary writer to the harsh realities of life among the splendor of eighteenth-century French society. The lyrical, poetic rendering of her prose is magical. (*Alabama Writer's Forum News and Reviews* on FOUNTAIN/PORTRAIT) “[U]nexpectedly addictive. Naslund once again creates memorable characters, surprising scenarios and astute notions on living life with intention.” (*Seattle Times* on FOUNTAIN/PORTRAIT)