Hard White by Melanie Dugan #bookreview #historical #literary #fiction #giveaway #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours

 

Literary / Historical Fiction

Date Published: 09-25-2202

Publisher: Woodpecker Lane Press

 

In this vividly-rendered novel, Melanie Dugan reimagines the life of Alice Neel, a groundbreaking American painter who revolutionized the art of the portrait in the twentieth century. Born in 1900 into a straitlaced middle-class family, Neel charted her own unconventional path. Her lifetime spanned World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic, women winning the right to vote, the Great Depression, World War II, the McCarthy Era, the Civil Rights Era, and second-wave feminism. She worked for decades in obscurity, wrestling with depression, poverty, and misogyny, loving the wrong men, fighting to live life on her own terms, and above all to paint.

Review

This book is suspenseful, fast-paced, and satisfying. If you're looking for entertainment, it would be hard to do any better than this. I recommend it most highly.

From the beginning onward I could not put it down. Being the visual reader that I am, I was drawn totally into the events and relationships of the novel.

The people and events are completely believable, in part because of how well the author researched the time period and how stylishly she describes it. She very obviously knows how to put words and sentences together.

This beautifully evoked piece of historical fiction has it all.

About the Author

Melanie Dugan is the author of Bee Summers (“a carefully wrought portrayal of the way we carry trauma with us through life.” Brenda Schmidt, Quill & Quire), Dead Beautiful (“the writing is gorgeous,” A Soul Unsung), Revising Romance (“heartwarming, amusing and…downright sexy,” Midwest Book Review), and Sometime Daughter (“Stunning debut,” Kingston Whig-Standard). Her short stories have been shortlisted for several awards, including the CBC Literary award. She lives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

 

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Author Website

 Novel Idea bookstore, Kingston, Ontario

 

 

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