I woke up to this fabulous Tweet from Einaudi Editore, the Italian publisher of Paris Red, or Rosso Parigi. Manet first traveled to Italy when he was 21, and I think the country was never far from his mind. In this New York Times article, writer Roderick Conway Morris says that Manet was “consistently” inspired by […]
Since finishing Paris Red in 2014, I wrote a draft of another novel and am at the beginning of a new project. That means I’ve been in love twice in the last two years and am starting a third relationship. That’s part of what writing means to me: letting myself fall in love again […]
France and French things have been part of my writing life for a long time. I’m thinking of Nice today, so I’m posting a poem set in Nice, which is in Magdalena, my prose poem collection. Nice isn’t named, though I do refer to vieille ville, old town. Trains carrying sleepers The dolphins made me stay in […]
I’ve written before about how Manet liked to paint yellow gloves, but today I’d like to take my interest in Manet’s sunny colors a step further. Manet often used yellow or orange to create a spark in a painting. Those might not be the colors we first associate with the artist, but they occur over […]
When I was in NYC, I spent time hanging out with Victorine. I just sat in the room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where Young Lady in 1866 is hanging, looking at the painting and watching other people look at the painting. I particularly liked seeing this young woman looking at Victorine because she […]
Manet died a week ago today, on April 30, 1883. He was just 51 years old. I used the portrait Carolus-Duran painted of Manet at the top of this post because I like how Manet looks in it. Friend Antonin Proust described Manet as “ouverte et franche,” and I think this portrait shows that side […]
Today is the official publication day for Paris Red, and I received some great news this morning: the book is a “pick” for Publishers Weekly “Books of the Week”! Paris Red is part of a list that includes Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child, Sue Roe’s Montmartre: Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art, […]
I think Victorine Meurent looks so glamorous in Young Lady in 1866, which is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I put it at the top of today’s post because April turned glamorous for me: Paris Red made it onto “must read” lists at InStyle and Harper’s Bazaar. InStyle said, “You’ll be caught […]
This week Facebook pulled my ad for Paris Red because it said I was “promoting nudity.” My ad didn’t have any nudity in it, but it linked to an interview I did that featured a detail from Manet’s Olympia. That’s all it took for me to get this response from Facebook: Here’s the ad as […]
At 7 p.m. April 24, I’ll be at The Community Bookstore in Brooklyn to read from Paris Red and share in conversation with Brigid Hughes, founder and editor of A Public Space. I can’t wait to see old friends and meet new ones, and I can’t wait to talk with Brigid Hughes. Rumor has it […]
Paris Red: A Novel by Maureen Gibbon 