The Beautiful American
by Jeanne
Mackin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
As
recovery from World War II begins, expat American Nora Tours travels from her
home in southern France to London in search of her missing sixteen-year-old
daughter. There, she unexpectedly meets up with an old acquaintance, famous
model-turned-photographer Lee Miller.
Neither has emerged from the war unscathed.
Nora
and Lee knew each other in the heady days of late 1920's Paris, when Nora was
giddy with love for her childhood sweetheart, Lee became the celebrated
mistress of the artist Man Ray, and Lee's magnetic beauty drew them all into
the glamorous lives of famous artists and their wealthy patrons. But Lee fails to realize that her friendship
with Nora is even older, that it goes back to their days as children in
Poughkeepsie, New York, when a devastating trauma marked Lee forever. Will
their reunion give them a chance to forgive past betrayals...and break years of
silence to forge a meaningful connection as women who have shared the best and
the worst that life can offer?
Excerpt One:
"I
wasn't there," I said.
We finished
our tea, carefully speaking only of what did not matter. The weather. The new
fashions, new movies. She never
mentioned Jamie, nor did I.
"I hear
back in the States they have invented color television," Lee said.
"Have
they?" I didn't have or want a
television. All I wanted to see of the
world was just outside my window in Grasse.
I wanted to see the lavender fields, and I wanted to hold my daughter.
At the table next to us, a little girl began to wail that she wanted her dolly
and her mother leaned over and whispered in her ear. The child stopped wailing,
but sobbed those awful silent tears of a bereft child.
"Has your father bought one? A color television?" I asked,
distracted by the little girl. Mr.
Miller had been keen on new gadgets, often buying things for the joy of taking
them apart and putting them back together.
Lee had inherited her mechanical ability from him. From my own father, Mr. Miller's yard man and
gardener, I had inherited what in Grasse they called “a good nose.” I had been tested and could pick out three
thousand different scents; most people could pick out only a few hundred.
"He'll
probably try to build his own." Lee laughed. "And do it." We
fell silent, overwhelmed.
"Look."
She stood and pulled on her gloves. "Can you come to us this
week-end? Come meet Roland. I married, you know. Twice, to be precise. Aziz and I married after you left Paris, but
it didn't last. God, Cairo was so
boring. But I think this one will last.
Come meet the husband, and little Anthony. Yes, I have a child. A boy.
The most beautiful little boy in the world. I'm absolutely besotted."
Pain knifed
my chest. "I didn't plan a long
stay," I said, trying to sound a touch careless, a little preoccupied with
all the things I had to do. "And I
didn't bring evening clothes. In fact, I
am wearing my entire travel wardrobe."
It was a
silly excuse but one that would do when the truth was too painful. I didn't want to see Lee holding her child.
Lee, who had never wanted to marry, to have children, now had both husband and
son. And my child was lost; her father,
the man who should have been my husband, was an ocean away, living with a
different wife, a different family.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Jeanne Mackin
is the author of several novels: The
Sweet By and By (St. Martin’s Press), Dreams of Empire (Kensington Books), The
Queen’s War (St. Martin’s Press), and The Frenchwoman (St. Martin’s
Press). She has published short fiction
and creative nonfiction in several journals and periodicals including American Letters and Commentary and SNReview.
She is also the author of the Cornell Book of Herbs and Edible Flowers (Cornell
University publications) and co-editor
of The Norton Book of Love (W.W.
Norton), and wrote art columns for
newspapers as well as feature articles for several arts magazines. She was the recipient of a creative writing
fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society and her journalism has won
awards from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, in
Washington, D.C. She teaches creative
writing at Goddard College in Vermont, has taught or conducted workshops in
Pennsylvania, Hawaii and New York and has traveled extensively in Europe. She lives with her husband, Steve
Poleskie, in upstate New York.
Website: http://www.jeannemackin.com/
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-American-Jeanne-Mackin/dp/0451465822/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407695361&sr=1-1&keywords=the+beautiful+american+jeanne+mackin
BN:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-beautiful-american-jeanne-mackin/1117225036?ean=9780451465825
Penguin:
http://www.penguin.com/book/the-beautiful-american-by-jeanne-mackin/9780451465825
Jeanne will be awarding a photo/postcard collection from the 1920s (US/Canada only) to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Use the Rafflecopter link below to enter. You can follow her tour at http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2014/08/excerpt-tour-beautiful-american-by.html
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteso great being here with you today. Thanks for hosting. A question for your readers: who is your favorite artist, and why? Nora, in the novel, is friends with many photographers, painters, Picasso!
ReplyDeleteJeanne Mackin, author of The Beautiful American
Nice excerpt
ReplyDelete