Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper - Tapa dura

An enchanting small masterpiece, complete with lovely colour plates. All of which enhance the text of this novel based on the lives of Lydia and Mary Cassatt. Lydia is dying of Bright's disease in Paris. The year is 1878, and Mary, the painter, distraught at the thought of losing her beloved sister, embarks on a series of five paintings which depict her doing things in daily life. It sounds sentimental, but it isn't. It can be summed up as lyrical, life-enhancing and one of those perfectly rounded small gems. It will need promoting and reviews, but it is bound to give a great deal of pleasure to many readers who appreciate real quality.

The year is 1878. Paris is the centre of the art world, and in the heart of its thriving, vibrant community live two sisters, Mary and Lydia Cassatt. One is at the peak of her career, as the other reaches her moment of greatest frailty...Lydia Cassatt is dying of Bright's disease. Conscious of her approaching death, she contemplates the narrowing of her world with courage, openness and dignity. But for Mary, an independent, ambitious painter, life is unimaginable without her beloved sister. Torn apart by the idea of losing Lydia, Mary embarks on a series of five paintings. And as the emotional tension between the sisters rises, they become unable to avoid inevitable questions about love and passion, about life and death...Lyrical and tender, Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper is a profoundly moving, unsentimental and hugely life-affirming story of the immortality which both love and art can bestow.