Cathy Marie Buchanan's The Painted Girls is the fictional story of Marie van Goetham, the real-life model for Edgar Degas's Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, and her sisters, Antoinette and Charlotte.
Fourteen-year-old Marie struggles with her place in the world, while 19-year-old Antoinette is torn between mothering her younger sisters and idling away her days in the company of Emile Abadie, who may or may not be a murdered. Nine-year-old Charlotte is a somewhat fleeting presence, while the mother of all three is addicted to the bottle, the reek of absinthe never absent from her breath.
Buchanan cleverly weaves together their stories, using clippings from Le Figaro and other papers to move the action along and fill in any gaps. Occasionally there are even glimpses of 1880s Paris (the portrayal here being 180 degrees from the Paris of Zola in The Ladies' Paradise). The biggest problem for me, however, was that I didn't care much about Marie, who often seemed rather pathetic, or Antoinette, who often seemed rather stupid, or Emile Abadie for that matter. The ending was the strongest part of the book, but even so, The Painted Girls is not in any danger of cracking my year's best list when the time comes.
Two stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment