La Tour Dreams Of The Wolf Girl: A Provocative Literary Novel of Georges de La Tour, Art, and Identity

by David Huddle

In this absorbing novel, the award-winning author David Huddle tells a provocative story involving the life of the mysterious painter Georges de La Tour and the echoes of his work across time.
An art history professor, Suzanne Nelson escapes her failing marriage by retreating into her research and the fertile world of her imagination. La Tour's ability to create luminous portraits of peasants stood in sharp contrast to his aggression toward the poor, but little information about his life exists, and Suzanne finds herself filling in the details, trying to understand how a man capable of brutality could create such beauty. Unwittingly looking to her own life and marriage, she invents La Tour's final painting sessions with a young model, a village girl. When the girl modestly disrobes for the artist, he discovers a marking on her back that she is obviously unaware of. By painting her, La Tour in effect reveals to the girl exactly who she is and who she is not. Her reaction is at once astonishing and utterly warranted. In Suzanne's mind, this encounter becomes a story of truth and lies, art and identity.
Deftly moving between the present and the seventeenth century, Huddle reveals the surprising repercussions of history and art in modern life. In the process he asks the biggest How do we come to define who we are? Which secrets must remain our own and which can we justify giving away? LA TOUR DREAMS OF THE WOLF GIRL is both passionate and fascinating, a wonder of narrative invention and emotional depth.

Genres: Fiction, Art

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 2002

About the author

David Huddle (Born 11 July 1942) is an American multi-genre writer. His poems, essays, and short stories have appeared in Esquire, Harper's Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Story, The Autumn House Anthology of Poetry, and The Best American Short Stories. His work has also been included in anthologies of writing about the Vietnam War.

Reviews

[Mariarose · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, as an art historian this book made me want to vomit. The books was well received by critics, but I wonder if they read it??? Let's just say that one of the characters has a patch of hair on her back and de La Tour calls it a Wolf Shoulder. UGH!

Truth be told I am researching de La Tour for a master's thesis and I do know the limited bits of available info on the artist. The author took great liberties in imagining what de La Tour was like. I found it more than a bit irreverent, but not in a cool Monty Python way, more in a way that makes one go, "Ummm? Gross. Ummm? No"

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Huddle's work are hidden gems waiting to be found. I wish this amazing writer had more exposure. This novel is very Michael Ondajaateish- fragmented with time and space lingering about in the narrative. Suzanne Nelson is a talented professor who is an expert in La Tour. In order to escape thinking about her marriage with Jack about to end, she throws herself with gusto an imagined interaction with La Tour and the Wolf Girl, Vivienne, his muse. As she is enveloped deeper into this world, Jack has an affair with the buxom and sexy Elly, also another professor at the University of Vermont. What makes this novel a delight is the human interactions that Suzanne and Jack have with one another, juxtaposed with the friendship of Vivenne and La Tour in the past.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

To judge by the author bio, Huddle is one of those writers -- of poetry and essays as well as fiction -- upon whom the literary establishment smiles. This is far from necessarily a recommendation, and indeed about fifteen or twenty pages into this novel I was ready to throw it at the wall on the grounds of Stark Pretentiousness Above and Beyond the Call of Duty. Luckily there wasn't a wall to hand and I persevered, because I ended up enjoying the book really quite a lot. Prissy, fortyish Vermont art history prof Suzanne and her spindoctoring businessman husband Jack are not so much an odd couple as a couple whose ways started diverging in two incompatible directions fairly soon after they married. Now their marriage is clearly falling apart; that Jack finds solace in boffing the earthy Elly whenever he can is a symptom of this rather than, as both he and especially Suzanne believe, a cause. Habitually reserved, Suzanne escapes the turmoil of her personal life by constructing a fantasy about the 17th-century French painter Georges de la Tour; in this extended daydream, de la Tour discovers that Vivienne, the village teenager he has taken on as his new model, has a patch of wolflike hair on the back of her shoulder of which she is (improbably) completely unaware.

What Huddle has constructed with this novel is a sort of rope of stories, and I'd guess it was Story that was really his preoccupation when he was writing it. Whatever, once he'd hooked me I stayed hooked; and by the final page I discovered that Suzanne was a far more interesting person than I'd earlier believed.

Beware of those first fifteen or twenty pages, though.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

[Lucy Andrews-Cummin]

What I love about Huddle's work is that he is always up to something, experimenting. That said, not every experiment is going to work -- or work for everyone. In this novel the story goes back and forth from George de La Tour, a French Baroque painter from the 17th century, to present-day Burlington, Vermont with little stops in Manhattan and Virginia up in the mountains where the two main characters come from, one from the city (Jack) and the other from a rural backwoods town (Suzanne). Suzanne is the first of her family to go to college and she is, by her own words, "a phenomenon". Jack is an ordinary likeable fellow of the middle upper crust. Well, so they marry and Jack goes into advertising, a salesman is what he is, and Suzanne becomes a tenured art prof at the University of Vermont. We go between their story and Suzanne's imagined story of de la Tour's last painting, of a girl with a blemish, a small pelt of fur on her back. They develop a relationship that goes bad. In fact, most relationships seem to falter whenever people try to open up to each other. I could, if I spent the time on it, get what he was up to, but other things didn't work for me, to do with the sorts of details Huddle chooses to highlight about people which felt, simply, like the bit of fur on the girl's back, superficial. But Huddle is always worth a try! His poetry is wonderful, by the way.

[James Frase-White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book that is richer upon a second reading--read first about 15 years ago. I was drawn to the book by the love of the work(s) of Georges de la Tour, painting in the mid-to late 1600's. His paintings are teasing treasures of light and crystallized personalities, his subjects "alive" and knowable, whether Christian saints or village peasants. If you do not know his work, please, oh please, hit your online search now. I was tempted by a search for the mysterious "wolf girl" in the title. Early on the author references La Tour as a somewhat unsavory human being, following art historian (at UVM, Burlington) Suzanne's career pursuit. Suzanne comes from an Appalachian family, unschooled in the arts and literature which captivate her early in life. The book presents Suzanne and her intimate world between vignettes of de La Tour's life, viewed from his model Vivienne, similar to how Suzanne sees the world around her, often clothed in instinct and silence. The beauty I found this time reading, is the undercurrent beyond our defenses we have adapted to survive in what we often see as a hostile, or uncertain world, culpable but also leading to the hope and truth, if not underlying good in our human character. I loved the book, dancing between now and 4 centuries ago.

[Lizzann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Art historian with an empty marriage vividly imagines Georges LaTour's final years painting amount model. As the stories echo over the intervening 300 years certain threads connecting the two become apparent but you have to look for them.

Chapters 1 and 2 tell of the chilhood/young adult experience of Suzanne and Jack setting up their emotionally distant personas. Vivienne and La Tour are the same. Introduce the themes of lying (or not) in telling stories of the mothers and fathers.

Not my favorite read, but perhaps, in reading other reviews and reflecting on them, I may get a better appreciation.

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an extremely strange book. It’s two different stories which only very vaguely connect. The story of Suzanne who grows up in Appalachia, her struggle to get an education and her marriage to Jack. Jack who has an ongoing affair with one of Suzanne’s colleagues and eventually leaves to live with the other woman. Suzanne is writing a dissertation about the artist la Tour. The other story is about la Tour and his painting of a young woman in his village and their strange relationship. Is the la Tour story supposed to be Suzanne’s dissertation? Is it at all real? It just all feels disjointed.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Psychologically seductive in its look at the struggles, contradictions and dissatisfactions in human relationships; the power of story and secrets (whether it be truth or lies) to bring us together or drive us apart; the strength of memory, familiarity and personal history to maintain connections; the search for and fear in coming to know oneself; and the effect of the creative (in art, in music, and in oneself) to soothe the troubled soul.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very disappointed to discover that there was no such painting as described in the book. But it did spur me to learn more about the artist. The description of the book here on Goodreads is much more interesting than the actual book itself. I do agree with one reviewer however, that the main character in the modern story, Suzanne WAS more interesting then we originally thought.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

What to think of this one...

I guess there are supposed to be parallels to the two stories. Both involve lying. Is Suzanne supposed to be Vivienne? I don't even know. I do know that Elly is a horrible person & Suzanne surprised me at the end.

Overall this really did nothing for me.

[Athena · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is about the bond that is created between strangers who have a love for the arts. I think it written poorly, the vernacular is at times unnecessarily formal or the casual word choice doesn't fit the situation. The stories in the book involve most of the characters throughout, but the content is lacking flavor, nothing interesting happens, or there is no offical end, it just stops, leaving you wondering what the point was. In the beginning the story takes place in the mountains. Suzanne, with above average intelligence, is an outcast along with fellow classmate Elijah Limeberry. She first relates to him and then hates him for having her believe that he is helpless. Then the story takes place at camp where Jack meets Colleen, a mean 11 year old who frihtens all the children because she is a bully. The next scene describes Jack and Suzanne's less than desirable marriage, and the passionate affairs with the people from the Halverston's orchestra. Nothing significant happens except the girl Vivienne with the wolf shoulder. She has an unnatural attachment to painter Georges La Tour. She started posing for him as a young girl,and he had shown her her shoulder. I was going to give this book 1 star but the wolf shoulder is fascinating and still gives me the chills.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to admit, I wanted to return this book to the library after reading the first couple of pages. It seemed cliched at first, Suzanne's humble beginnings in Appalachia to her current life as an academic. I continued to read it because I had a long train ride and nothing else to read. I started to enjoy it because of the simplicity, however, I also dislike this book for the same reason.

There was something that was irritating me about this book and I couldn't put my finger on it until the middle, when Jack cheats on Suzanne and then accidentally blurts it out. The moment could have been comedic and exciting, but it fell flat. It was irritating that some scintillating moments fell flat because of the way they were written, with no metaphor or insight of the characters' state of mind.

[Libby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having to prepare to do a presentation on Georges de la Tour, I decided to read this. Known to be a scoundrel, the 1500's artist, La Tour propositions a family to allow him to paint portraits of their beautiful young daughter. He is a deranged and perverted old man. All of the story is fictitious and other than his large pack of dogs, nothing else in the story could be verified in any historical research. Flash forward to modern day where an art history professor immerses herself in the study of LaTour at the expense of her marriage, which eventually falls apart. The book alternates between La Tour and the art history professor. Though I read it to the end, I would summarize the book as drivel.

[Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantasy involving the painter Georges de la Tour (1593-1652), as imagined by a character named Suzanne who withdraws from her marriage to a guy named Jack who is portrayed as oafish in his jollity and who is anyway involved extramaritally with a lady named Elly. Suzanne barricades herself in her private room and thinks about La Tour, somewhat, although considered solely in terms of word count she's thinking much more about the complex relationships she's had throughout her life. Although the plot isn't much more detailed than what was just stated, the book has power in its observations about psychology.

[Jessica Haider · Rating 4 out of 5]

The plot of "La Tour Dreams of the Wolf Girl" switches back and forth between the story of a present day art history professor in Vermont and the artist George La Tour in 17th century France. The art history professor, Suzanne, is writing a paper on La Tour and focuses most of her energy on one of La Tour's paintings. Suzanne imagines the story behind the painting-- a love affair between La Tour and the Wolf Girl.

A good, relatively quick read...I hope to read more of Huddle's work in the future.

[Sy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked the title (sometimes I pick up books in the library based on their titles). Unfortunately, I cannot say much without spoiling the book. What I found intriguing about this read is the author's uncanny ability to set a scene, complete with characters' reactions, thoughts, and desires. It was a quick read, mostly because I found it so interesting. It is a very realistic and touching portrayal of intimate relationships.

[Judith Shadford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second reading. I was struck by the dense interlayering of secrets, lies and the occasional truth, so artfully woven in a multi-century story. The extended scene describing the Beethoven String Quartet rehearsal is a marvel...because that, indeed, is how wonderful music works.

[Lea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course all books by David Huddle get 5 stars!

[Divvy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm conflicted about rating this book. I liked Huddle's writing, but I never really got sucked into the story. Perhaps I couldn't connect to the characters.

[Penn Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous and underrated novel. Huddle deserves a broader audience.

[Vickie Backus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to agree with Publishers Weekly about this one. It is beautifully written but awkwardly plotted and the characters don't have much depth.

[Elena · Rating 1 out of 5]

waa waa

[Alicia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not badly written, but completely forgettable.