Lucy Steeds' writing is very atmospheric and often quite poignant. Her characters are flawed human beings, each vulnerable in their own way and burdened by the emotional baggage of their individual experiences. Steeds expertly conjures up the oppressive heat of a French summer, the claustrophobic ambience of the household in which the young journalist, Joseph, finds himself a guest and reluctant model of the reclusive fictional artist, Edouardo Tartuffe. The references to real artistic figures like Paul Cézanne and Sergei Diaghilev lend the novel a sense of realism, period and historical backdrop in a story that is otherwise entirely fictional.

An excellent debut by a potentially promising author whose work I shall be looking out for in the future.

Many thanks to the publishers and to Netgalley for the ARC.

The book that I have just finished reading is a book set in the French countryside and follows an aspiring journalist, Joseph, who gets invited by his favourite artist to travel to his home and write an article on him, or so he believes. When Joseph arrives he finds that the artist had no idea he was coming and he was in fact invited by the artists niece, Ettie. They reach a deal however. Joseph can stay and write his article if he agree’s to be the artists model.

I can’t tell you what drew me to this book. It’s been a while since I’ve browsed through NetGalley and I saw this one in the general fiction section and something about it just stood out to me. Without knowing too much about it I requested it and started reading it soon after I got accepted and it had me in it’s grasp from page one.

This book is so full of intrigue and it’s so steadily paced. Throughout it has these little reveals that keeps the story going and keeps making you want to turn the page. It’s a very isolated setting so you get to know these characters quite intimately and by the end I found I had come to really care about them, especially Ettie.

Through Ettie, Steeds explores a women’s place in an artists world. This is historical fiction set post WWI which is one of my favourite eras to read about anyway, and a very interesting time in the feminist movement. Steeds explores a very Virginia Woolf, Room of One’s Own feminist message which I think made me love this book even more. I’ve read books like this before where authors make the creative decision to keep these female characters silent and in the background to reflect their situation. Steeds wasn’t afraid to make this Ettie’s story, give her a voice, a fire in her belly.

“When nobody is looking she can do as she pleases, living in the freedom that comes when other peoples eyes are turned away.”

There is also a beautiful romance that blossoms and a mystery with a very satisfying conclusion. This book has a lot of heart to it and it is written with a beautiful tenderness. Steeds has a way with words and it makes me quite sad that this is her first novel. I am impatiently waiting for her to write more, and her debut hasn’t even been officially released yet.

“It is she who commissions the frame and returns a week later to carry it home, slung over he shoulder as if she herself is a painting.”

I don't know the author or the publisher, but the blurb sounded interesting and the cover was cool. And I find the art of the early 20th century fascinating anyway - so I had to read the book :-).

This is what it's about: We are in France, the Provence, in a remote village in the middle of nowhere. Joseph, in his 20s, a dropout art student and aspiring journalist from England, wants to earn his spurs and accepts an invitation to visit the exceptional international painter Edouard Tartuffe, to interview him and to be one of the few reporters to be allowed to portray him. But somehow everything looks a little different to what he expected. Tartuffe, misanthrope par excellence, was not expecting him at all. It was his niece Sylvette, called Ettie, who invited him, and instead of acting as a journalist, Joseph agrees to a bizarre deal: he is allowed to help Tata, as Tartuffe calls himself, as a model, and although he still doesn't get an interview in return, he does get permission to write about him. Better than nothing, thinks Joseph, and so very memorable weeks in the artist's house begin for him.....

An interesting introduction to the story, and of course there isn't much in the Tartuffe house, as one might expect. Each of the three main characters carries their own traumatic baggage with them: Joseph, as a pacifist, had to watch how the First World War destroyed his brother; Tata lives in his own world anyway, and Ettie - yes, Ettie is tied to Tata in her own special way and just wants to live her own life. And finally be able to be the artist she has always been.
Over the course of a hot summer, events are supposed to come to a dramatic head, leading to a truly fiery finale.....

My reading impression: This was a really good book. It all started relatively slowly, we were introduced to the characters relatively calmly, it was a more sedate style of storytelling at the beginning, and then everything picked up speed little by little. At some point I was so into the story that I had to keep reading and read the second half of the novel in one go. The atmosphere, the setting, everything was just right. It was also exciting what we as readers are told about painting and the creation of works of art. And what is actually important as a viewer? I read that the author is a synesthete, and I think Ettie is too. Color is light and life - I found that fascinating.

In general, I found the characters profound and really complex. As I said, it took me a moment to really warm to them, but it was worth the effort.

At the beginning, for example, I was wondering about the characters. For example, I was a bit surprised about Ettie, she seemed so strange to me - why does a 27-year-old run her misanthropic uncle's household so meticulously and let herself be treated like a nobody? What's wrong with her? But hey, actually there's a lot going on with her, and I was really rooting for her.

Funny side note: real historical figures like Peggy Guggenheim and Scott (Fitzgerald?) appear, and that gave the story an authentic appeal. Edouard Tartuffe is fictional - but I could imagine him exactly like that. I googled the name because I thought maybe he actually existed - no, he doesn't :-). But hats off to the author, I would have believed her!

So, a book about art, life, of course also about love, but also about the freedom to be who you are. I really liked it, I'll remember the author!

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the review copy! I really enjoyed it!

Well written, imaginative, engrossing story. An artist who wishes to control everything that makes his life run smoothly but as it also contains the one person closest to him as his niece is on the cusp of womanhood and with her own secrets, things will obviously upend. I enjoyed this, a brief glimpse into beautiful france and the way an artist there lives and works. Very enjoyable.

The Artist begins in 1957 with a woman gazing at a painting she knows intimately in London’s National Gallery before winding back to the summer of 1920 when a young art journalist travels to Provence, hoping to interview the renowned and notoriously reclusive Edouard Tartuffe. He’s somewhat taken aback when the irascible artist demands that he model for a portrait, brusquely agreeing that Joseph can write about him in return. Tata's every need is attended to by Ettie, so self-effacing Joesph barely notices her at first. Ettie has hardly left the remote farmhouse where she and her uncle live, filled with a longing to experience the world and explore the talent her uncle has done his best to squash. As the summer wears on, Joseph unravels a perplexing mystery and Ettie sees a way for her talent to be recognised.
Steeds’ debut is gorgeously immersive, the summer Provencal landscape and the food it produces vividly evoked. Her descriptions of art are arresting as you might expect from a writer whose day job is lecturing on the subject. The novel’s overarching theme is the age-old dismissal of women’s artistic talent, still alive and kicking in the early twentieth century, skilfully explored through gripping storytelling, replete with small reveals, including a very satisfying one following a scene in which a female collector puts her boorish male companions firmly in their ignorant place. Clever title, too. I'm keen to see what Steeds comes up with next.