Author Julie Gilbert Discusses the Writing of Her New Book ‘Giant Love’
Julie Gilbert Today, we delve into the enduring relevance of the themes explored by Pulitzer Prize -winning author Edna Ferber
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Introduction by Halimah Marcus Share article Oct 7, 2024 Issue No 647 The Life of a Muse Is No Life at All Written by Alysandra Dutton Recommended by Halimah Marcus Reading “Sophy” by Alysandra Dutton, art history majors and avid museum goers may recognize John Everett Millais, a founder of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and his frequent subject Sophia Gray. As I expect I am in the forgiving company of numerous English majors, I will confess I long ago forgot these names, if I ever knew them. And yet Dutton has imagined her way into Sophy’s portrait so successfully—the frank expression, that defiant chin, those sorrowful eyes—Sophia herself (Sophy, as she is known to her family) climbs off the canvas, vivid and very much alive. “Sophy” opens in 1882, the year of her death, in an asylum where, at 39, Sophy is suffering from anorexia nervosa, which at that time would have been considered hysteria or some other uterine-born madness. Millais has come to paint her one last time, as a Greek chorus of critics buzz around unhelpfully, noting that she has lost the boldness that once made her beautiful. The story rewinds from there, from her final days to before she sat for her most famous portrait at thirteen. When Sophy sees “Portrait of a Young Lady” for the first time, she thinks “It captures her best, her most intimate, her deepest self plainly surfaced. She has not even had time to see this face in the mirror, yet.” But where she sees strength and maturity, her family sees a seduction and a disgrace. The critics, present her whole life, see “erotic potential” and a burgeoning “object of great lust”—though they don’t hesitate to speculate that she is having an affair with the artist, who happens to also be her sister’s husband. “Portrait of a Young Lady” has likewise moved Dutton—a kind of portrait artist herself, albeit with different aims and in a different medium—to speculation. For Millais, Sophy is a muse, and as a muse, she does not control her image. And as a woman who does not […]
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Julie Gilbert Today, we delve into the enduring relevance of the themes explored by Pulitzer Prize -winning author Edna Ferber
The Mallorcan Joana Marcús is a young bestseller in Spain and America, writer of young adult novels with a romantic
