Brenna's review
The Last Summer of the World: A Novel
by Emily Mitchell
Brenna's review
The Last Summer of the World: A Novel by Emily Mitchell
Brenna's review
rating:
recommended for: lauren
i really liked this book. it was a compelling and rich narrative with wonderful characters, and i loved the art historical element. the author presents a fictionalized account of an actual series of events that happened in the art photographer edward stiechen's life. other artists make appearances in the novel--stieglitz, rodin, and isadora duncan, to name a few. the book goes back and forth between edward's life before WWI and his life during and after it. because of this back-and-forth, the unraveling of the photographer's marriage runs parallel to developments leading to the impending war. the author portrays both stiechen and his wife sympathetically and realistically, making it difficult to look at the failure of the marriage as clearly one person's fault or the other. a wonderful read.
