Exclusive interview with author Priya Parma and a review of her new novel about the lives of two scandalous sisters, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf
Rating: 4 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“Virginia Woolf was not an easy person,” says Vanessa and her Sisters author Priya Parma. “Brilliant, gifted, crackerjack fun to watch in action but never easy. So what would it have been like to be the person she loved best in the world? That person was her sister, the painter, Vanessa Bell.”
Told through a fictional diary written by Vanessa and in letters and telegrams between the characters, Vanessa and her Sisters is the story of Vanessa, a gifted painter, and her sister Virginia, an even more gifted writer. While reading we forget the story is a novel. It’s a story of fierce competitiveness, extending even to lovers, yet close family bonds that endure. As the author, Parma passes undetected. The storyteller invisible, the story is everything. It’s as though we really had discovered Venessa’s diary. And, there could be sequel.
Vanessa is a caring and humble devoted older sister who doesn’t realize her real worth. As the years go by Vanessa begins to come into her own. The two sisters are part of a collective called the Bloomsbury Set, a group of famous artists and writers that includes Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster. The group leads an avant-garde lifestyle living with lovers and open marriages. Uncertain about her own talent as an artist, in reality Vanessa’s paintings are wonderful and just as relevant as her more famous sister’s writing. Vanessa is told by her family that her art is not as important as Virginia’s writing. Unfortunately, Virginia is mentally ill and very manipulative. Vanessa marries Clive Bell in 1907. Virginia is so jealous of anyone who takes Vanessa away from her that she does something that is unforgivable, but in time Vanessa will forgive.
“How truly revolutionary they were,” says Parma. “In 1910, this was a group of friends who threw out all of the social musts of their time. They made their own rules entirely and overturned every commonly held idea of femininity, marriage, masculinity, love, friendship and fidelity. But when there are no rules, things can also go very wrong.”
“I knew I wanted to write about the sisters but as I swam deeper and deeper into the research, I realized the book was about a forgotten, dark moment that threatened to fracture their relationship,” says Parma. “It is a betrayal that has fallen away from their mythology but shaped the rest of their lives. When I looked at their lives through that forgotten lens, the story stepped forward.”
For research, Parma read thousands of letters, postcards and telegrams to build her novel about Vanessa. The book covers about eight years from 1905 to 1912.
“I moved back to London and lived in Bloomsbury,” says Parma. “And then I started in on the archives. The most fascinating research came at the end, when I was in the editing process. Vanessa Bell’s granddaughter, and so Virginia Woolf’s great niece, reached out to me. She was extraordinarily generous and took me to Charleston Farmhouse and shared her marvelous Bloomsbury memories. She also read the manuscript and gave me extraordinary notes riddled with wonderful details that no one but a member of the family could know.”
“I was very lucky as the Tate Britain in London holds much of the Bloomsbury correspondence,” says Parma. “The most extraordinary documents I saw were not documents but sketches. Last spring I was able to see many of Vanessa Bell’s never before seen sketches which have just been gifted to the Charleston Trust. Drawing on her letters for inspiration, I had written scenes of Vanessa painting them and to see them was magical.”
Parma is based in London and Hawaii. She was born in Washington D.C.
Vanessa and Her Sister: A Novel, by Priya Parma. Deckle Edge, hardcover, 368 pages, Publisher: Ballantine Books (December 30, 2014), Language: English, ISBN: 9780804176378 $26.00
