Book Review: I Always Loved You
Interview with author Robin Oliveira and a review of her new novel about the lives of artists Mary Cassett and Edgar Degas
Rating: 4 Stars • Reviewed By Gabriella Pantera
“I have always loved ballet and Edgar Degas’s paintings of the ballet,” says I Always Loved You author Robin Oliveira. “But the true inspiration for the book came when I learned that at the end of her life Mary Cassatt had not only burned all the letters that she had ever received from Degas, but that upon his death, she had retrieved from his studio all the letters that she had ever written to him and later burned them too. Because of this the nature of their relationship has always been a puzzle to biographers and historians. Were they in love? What happened between them? Had they ever been lovers? This type of gap in the historical record is the entry point for historical fiction, at least it is for me.”
Engaging. The details of artists’ personalities, how they paint and the intersections of their art and personal lives will draw you in. Oliveira traces the personal lives of Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas. She also shares insights into the lives of artist Édouard Manet and his lover Berthe Morisot. Other famous people in the book include Abigail May Alcott, sister of Louisa May Alcott, author Émile Zola and impressionist artist Claude Monet.
It is 1907. Mary Cassatt meets Edgar Degas. Mary is an American trying to conform to the style of art of the times. Edgar changes her painting style. Mary lives most of her adult life in Paris. The story Oliveira weaves is filled with their shared love of painting and Impressionism. We feel their love of art and their despair in disappointments. The book is a love affair of art, not physical love. A must-read if you’re passionate about art.
When Oliveira started, she knew nothing about Paris in the Belle Epoque. “Before I even began writing, I read a great deal of art history, art technique, exhibition catalogs, diaries, and biographies of the impressionists to educate myself,” she says. “Fifty books, perhaps, in total. After I began writing, when I knew which paintings I needed to see in person, I visited many museums: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Morgan Library and Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The National Gallery, the Phillips Collection, the Louvre, and the Musée d’Orsay. I spent time in the library of the Musee d’Orsay in search of unpublished letters and documents of the artists, including exhibition catalogs of the Salon and the impressionists. I also read old French newspapers at the Library of Congress.”
At the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, Oliveira arranged to see all of the artifacts that they have from Degas’s studio. “Which they keep in the basement and are not on view to the general public,” says Oliveira. “I spent ten days in Paris hunting down the impressionists’ studios, apartments and haunts, trespassing in some cases so that I could get a behind the scenes look in alleyways and courtyards.”
A theme that runs through each of Oliveira’s books is a strong woman fighting for a place in a man’s world. “Many people have asked me whether or not I have encountered prejudicial obstacles that have led me to this theme,” says Oliveira. “I have not. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky. I was raised with four sisters and no brother to compare us to, so I was always told that I could do anything I wanted…. But women as a whole have always had to fight for a place among men. It is one of the unifying conflicts across cultures. It continues to astonish me how tenacious this prejudice remains worldwide. I like to showcase women who have successfully fought the good fight and shown us how it is done.”
Oliveira lives in Seattle.
I Always Loved You, A Novel by Robin Oliveira. Paperback, 368 pages, Publisher: Penguin Books (March 31, 2015), Language: English, ISBN: 9780143126102 $16.00
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