The Painted Girls: A Novel by Cathy Marie Buchanan

We met at JoAnn's house to take advantage of her crystal blue pool.  Brenda provided a delicious meal of chicken salad, a new type of hummus for us to sample, and her yummy apple-cinnamon sandwiches.  The weather was perfect for eating outdoors and floating in the pool while discussing our June book.

Synopsis:
Sisters Marie and Antoinette van Goethem live in desperate poverty in Paris, France, in the late 1800s.  Their father is deceased and their mother's meager laundress wages go towards her addiction to absinthe.  Both girls will find themselves working in the ballet opera house, along with their youngest sister, Charlotte.  Antoinette and Marie alternate narrating this story sharing their struggles, sacrifices, and forced journey from childhood to adult responsibilities while still in their teenage years.

 
Degas' "Little Dancer of Fourteen Years"

Comments:
"It is about being downtrodden and staying that way.  Hard work makes no difference, he is saying.  My lot, the lots of those around me, were cast the moment we were born into the gutter to parents who never managed to step outside the gutter themselves." (page 96 - Kindle)  The van Goethem sisters are victims of their parents' station in life.  It was depressing and dark at times reading the struggles, injustices, and sadness experienced by the poorest of poor during this time period in France.  However, that true to life depiction is what made this story so compelling.  There were moments of triumph and joy for the sisters.  Marie finds her soul fed through dance: "Sometimes I wonder, though, if for the very best ballet girls, the trickery is not a little bit real, if a girl born into squalor cannot find true grace in the ballet." (p. 220 - Kindle)  However, as Marie and Antoinette will discover, their most marketable asset is that which makes them both powerful and vulnerable.  "I want to put my face in my hands, to howl, for me, for Antoinette, for all the women of Paris, for the burden of having what men desire, for the heaviness of knowing it is ours to give, that with our flesh we make our way in the world." (p. 250 - Kindle)

Marie models for Edgar Degas as a means of earning extra income.  Much of Degas's actual art work is centered on scenes from the Paris Opera where the sisters worked, but his most famous sculpture is the one which the author uses Marie as the model.  His paintings and sculptures were considered 'too realistic' at that time, and is the case with the majority of famous artists, his works were not appreciated and considered investment-worthy until after his demise.

The popularly accepted physiognomies studies during that time period were fascinating.  The idea that certain facial features hinted at a person's innate criminality played a role in judicial outcomes, art, and literature.

Memorable Quote:
"He touched me on the shoulder lightly, and in the touch I felt sadness that girls grow into women; that men crumple, hobbling over walking sticks; that flowers wither; that trees drop their leaves." (p. 250 - Kindle)

FAB Rating: ***** (5 out of 5 stars)
This story was the perfect mix of authentic historic events and figures with a believable storyline intertwined. The author's addition of headline news taken from that year were informative and added depth to the storyline.  Ultimately, this book was a reminder of the strength found in the bonds of sisterhood.  Each of the girls played their birth order role as expected with the tension, intimacy, and love found in the everyday relationships of sisters.  In the end, having one another is what saved Antoinette, Marie, and Charlotte.