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Summary: PITCH PERFECT PROSE CELEBRATES FAMILY, LOVE, AND ART
Review: Art and life. Life and art. The lines pf demarcation aren't' visible in this richly imagined story of the relationship between Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt (1847 - 1926) and her older sister, Lydia, who sometimes served as Cassatt's model. Using five of the artist's paintings as springboards the author offers a moving story of courage and creativity, while she renders a fascinating study of the times in which the women lived. Although suffering painfully, from a terminal illness, Bright's disease, Lydia continues to model for her sister, relentlessly scanning each finished portrait as if it foretold her future. Chessman conceives of Lydia as a study in patience and resignation, imagining that painter Edgar Degas, who often visited the sittings, said to Lydia, "You show me how to live, if only I could do it as you do." In addition to exploring a unique sibling bond "Lydia Cassatt Reading The Morning Paper" suggests aspects of Cassatt's daring life, hints at a liaison with the dynamic Edgar Degas, and presents thumbnail sketches of her interaction with such artists as Renoir and Caillebotte. Lydia, we learn, died in 1882 while Cassatt lived to create for over thirty more years. Rather than a sad reflection on a too short life, Chessman, with pitch-perfect prose, has penned a celebration of family, love, and art. - Gail Cooke
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Summary: Love's Wishes
Review: As an artist, I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the processes of painting and posing for important Mary Cassatt portraits of her beloved sister, Lydia.
As a reader,I found this simple tale of a beautiful love between two sisters delightful, 162 pages of sheer fulfillment.
Imagine the brilliance of Harriet Scott Chessman in bringing you into the mind and heart of Lydia Cassatt, sharing her intimate thoughts about her sister, life, love, her illness and her feelings for Edgar Degas and his for her. Hear her speak of how life cheated her and blessed her. Travel with her as she comes to terms with the joys open to her, the service open to her, the love open to her.
If it isn't enough to gain this rare entrance into another's life, consider that you are in Paris and you are invited to share the wonders of a family who had Edgar Degas, Pierre-August Renoir, Louise and May Alcott in their lives. See what you learn about the Alcott family and Edgar Degas.
Most of all, just enjoy with Lydia a slice of her life and wish her well into the hereafter.
Rating:
Summary: A gem of a book
Review: At first glance, I read this book hoping for insight into the life of the painter Mary Cassatt. But the book's truest strength lies in its observations on death and life, and art's role in it. A quiet, understated and beautifully written book. For other books on a similar theme, try Girl in Hyacinth blue by Susan Vreeland (about a painting presumed to be a Vermeer) and Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chavalier, also about Vermeer.
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Summary: An artful novel about a novel artist
Review: Harriet Chessman has written a beautiful novel about an unusual woman: Mary Cassat, the Impressionist painter who lived in Paris, was a lover of Degas, and a fully emancipated woman during a time when woman were assigned either to the bedroom or the kitchen; a woman who prefered her art and her freedom to marriage and conformity. More than that, it is, in fact, a novel about two women: Mary and her favorite model -- her sister Lydia -- who, while fatally ill with Bright's Disease, posed for many of Mary's paintings. It's such a beautiful and original work on many levels. Each of it's five chapters features a color reproduction of a painting of Lydia, and each painting is a take-off point for the narrator: what she was thinking and feeling, what she was observing about Mary and her friends, and what she felt about the dichotomy of mortality of the flesh and the immortality of the paintings.
Rating: 
Summary: An Exquisitely Graceful Novel
Review: Harriett Scott Chessman's prose moves with the deceptive beauty of a ballet dancer, its weightless grace diverting attention from the muscularity powering every gesture. Nothing is squandered, as this wisp-thin novel offers up more sharp-eyed observation and insight than books five times its girth. Consider the narrator's description of Edgar Degas, whom she likens to a dog. "He bit into subjects --- the foolishness of one artist or another, the insipidity of someone's latest effort, I can't remember --- all the while his eyes lit on things in our apartment, with an air of studying and maybe breaking them: the tea set, the Japanese vase on the mantel, me." LYDIA CASSATT READING THE MORNING PAPER is a fictionalized story based on the relationship between the American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt and her sister, Lydia, who narrates the story. The novel revolves around sessions in which Lydia poses for her sister. Lydia, 41, is dying of Bright's disease. On a good day, sitting and holding a newspaper while Mary paints her is physically exhausting. On a bad day, getting out of bed would be an impossible trick.
Mary, seven years her junior, is on the cusp of realizing her creative ambitions, having been accepted as the only woman in the inner circle of late 19th Century impressionists who were stirring up Paris and the art world. These sisters savor their time together because they deeply love each other and they know they'll soon be parted. Much goes unspoken. The younger sister avoids acknowledging that Lydia has little time left and the older woman doesn't force the conversation. They communicate through the work. "I was sick again this morning, and May (Lydia refers to her sister by this nickname throughout) looked discouraged as she helped me wash my face and get dressed. I wonder whether this will be May's last picture of me. I think May wonders this too, because there's a new quietness between us. She's intensely focused on her work, and she paints for a long time without a pause." The third and only other significant character in the book is Degas. In real life, Degas was Lydia's close friend and mentor. They may or may not have been lovers. In Chessman's novel, there is a romance, though it is only glimpsed through Lydia's observations. "He touched the nape of May's neck. He caressed her for a moment and she leaned into him." Such passages poignantly capture Mary's combination of tender joy for her sister, curiosity and yearning for a type of love that she knows is only in her past. The descriptions of Degas are among the best parts of this luminous book. Lydia knows well the famous painter's reputation for cruelty but experiences only kindness and respect from him. She regards him with affection, but is never completely at ease. "...this sensation of being protected from the Cyclops by the Cyclops itself, while he eats everyone else in sight --- well, it's fragile at best," Lydia says. The novel holds no suspense in its plot --- the reader knows the ending from the first page --- but it manages to continually surprise with its startlingly lovely language. There is little in the way of action --- a paintbrush flutters across a canvass, cider spills in the grass. The novel takes on big themes --- the love between sisters, artistic passion, even mortality --- but it does so one tiny, exquisite detail at a time. --- Reviewed by Karen Jenkins Holt
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Summary: A little charmer!
Review: I have been absorbed by Mary Cassatt's art for years, and this delightful little novel gives an imaginary, yet plausible look into some of Mary Cassatt's best work,featuring her older sister Lydia.I have long been intersted in late 19th and early 20th century France, and the art produced then.Harriet Scott Chessman's research shows in great, though not overwhelming detail of the life of a bourgeois American family with a serioulsy talented artist in their midst.Lydia Cassatt died too early of a now treatable kidney condition, and Chessman shows how the family may have coped with her illness. However, this is not a glum book at all, it is very warm, loving, and cheerful in spots.The five Mary Cassatt paintings are well chosen and well reproduced.
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Summary: Heartwarming & Beautiful story of Sisterhood!
Review: I picked up this book because I liked the cover and when I discovered it was the fictional story behind five of Mary Cassatt's paintings, I knew I had to read it. I have always loved Cassatt's art and this book tells the story behind the five portraits May painted of her sister Lydia and includes copies of the paintings themselves among the book's pages. Of course this is a work of fiction and comes from Chessman's imagination, but nevertheless, it is a wonderful, beautiful, thoughtful and insightful story of how those portraits may have come to life. It is a short novel (160 pgs) and can be read in one sitting. That is the reason for my 4* review instead of 5. I really enjoyed the story and thought it was wonderfully written, but I felt it could have been a little longer and a few more details could have been revealed. For instance, while Lydia speaks often of her deceased brother, and her earlier lover, there isn't a whole lot of details about them. Also, I'd like to know more about relationship between Lydia and Mary away from the painting. Don't misunderstand - I absolutely LOVED this book. I just would have liked to have continued my reading and now I'm searching for further info about the Cassatts and other writings by Chessman!!!! I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves Mary Cassatt's artwork, who enjoys a wonderful story about sisterhood, or the hopelessly romantic reader - none of you will be let down!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Lyrical Tale of Sisterly Love
Review: I was a huge fan of Tracy Chevalier's "Girl with a Pearl Earring", so I was most interested to read Harriet Chessman's novel about Mary Cassatt and her sister Lydia - the inspiration for many of her impressionist paintings. Chessman's style is elegant, and spare, and she limns a portrait as lovingly as Cassatt painted Lydia. If I have any criticism, it's that I wished the novel had a broader scope - it covers a very brief period when Cassatt and her family lived in Paris. I wanted to know more about the family before they came to Europe, and how at that time in history a woman was able to rise to such prominence in the epicenter of the birth of modern art. Chessman is an accomplished writer, and yet the book is not as deeply felt as it could be, perhaps because of its brevity. Still, it is a tale well worth the telling, and a pleasure to read.
Rating:
Summary: Only if you like Cassatt
Review: If you aren't one of the many who adore Mary Cassatt's paintings, this book won't interest you at all. If it did not include lovely reproductions of five Lydia paintings, and if it were entirely fictional-not based on careful research about the Cassatts, their friends, and the setting, it would not be much of a read. I found myself looking at the prints repeatedly; Chessman elucidates the paintings in ways that empower both Cassatt's artistry and the relationship between the sisters that the author develops. It is a slight book in length, and often reads like a creative writing exercise (research a historical figure and write a story in the first person based on your findings), but there are moving, human glimpses of a moment or two in time, and if the book leads more people to examine Cassatt with deeper appreciation of her art, then it has served its purpose.
Rating:
Summary: Only if you like Cassatt
Review: If you aren't one of the many who adore Mary Cassatt's paintings, this book won't interest you at all. If it did not include lovely reproductions of five Lydia paintings, and if it were entirely fictional-not based on carefully research about the Cassatts, their friends, and the setting, it would not be much of a read. I found myself looking at the prints repeatedly; Chessman elucidates the paintings in ways that empower both Cassatt's artistry and the relationship between the sisters that the author develops. It is a slight book in length, and often reads like a creative writing exercise (research a historical figure and write a story in the first person based on your findings), but there are moving, human glimpses of a moment or two in time, and if the book leads more people to examine Cassatt with deeper appreciation of her art, then it has served its purpose.
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