War and Turpentine
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Book Overview
Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017 A New York Times Top 10 Best Book of the Year An Economist Best Book of the Year The life of Urbain Martien--artist, soldier, survivor of World War I--lies contained in two notebooks he left behind when he died in 1981. In War and Turpentine, his grandson, a writer, retells his grandfather's story, the notebooks providing a key to the locked chambers of Urbain's memory. With vivid detail, the grandson recounts a whole life: Urbain as the child of a lowly church painter, retouching his father's work;dodging death in a foundry; fighting in the war that altered the course of history; marrying the sister of the woman he truly loved; being haunted by an ever-present reminder of the artist he had hoped to be and the soldier he was forced to become. Wrestling with this tale, the grandson straddles past and present, searching for a way to understand his own part in both. As artfully rendered as a Renaissance fresco, War and Turpentine paints an extraordinary portrait of one man's life and reveals how that life echoed down through the generations. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout)
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:1101874023
ISBN13:9781101874028
Release Date:August 2016
Publisher:Pantheon Books
Length:304 Pages
Weight:1.15 lbs.
Dimensions:1.3" x 5.7" x 9.3"
Related Subjects
Art And Creativity Family And Relationships Memoir Family Legacy Fiction Literature & FictionCustomer Reviews
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