Tata, as Edouard Tartuffe prefers to be called, is an artist of great renown. He is highly thought of in the art world and by collectors in Europe and America.Tata once lived in Paris and relocated with his sister for her benefit to an old farmhouse property accessed up a remote donkey track.

He lives here with his niece, Ettie (Sylvette) who, for a few chapters, appears to be stifled, under her uncle's control. Ettie's mother left her with Tata when she was just seven years old to pursue life in New York and Ettie desperately wants to know why and who her father was, but no one will tell her.

All this time from the age of seven until the present, she is now 27, Tata exercises his control with his unreasonable demands. He has a great fear of competition and he refuses to allow Ettie to pick up a pencil or an artist's brush of her own even though this is her burning desire. He also has a great fear of being left alone.

Instead, observant Ettie, runs the household - actually everything in their lives, including buying and choosing the props he uses to paint his great masterpieces, ordering his supplies, framing his works, running the finances, cooking their meals and cleaning their home and her uncle's studio.

A young journalist and ex-art student, Joseph works for a newly founded art magazine in London by his mentor Harry. Joseph arrives at Tata and Ettie's home in June and the blustery, ill-tempered Tata is unimpressed to say the least. He does not give interviews. He also does not realise that he invited Joseph - except he didn't...

The writing is marvellously gripping, descriptive to a T, keeping one eager to know more and what will happen next in this unusual household and Tata's studio filled with rotting food. When Raimondo, the "man from Paris", an art dealer, arrives to collect Tata's art to sell in his gallery, he is dismissive towards Ettie as usual and curious about Joseph. Ettie once showed him her secretly painted canvases and he brutally ignored her talent with his most awful manner.

There is a great rumour in the village that Tata, who never leaves his home once, had a huge argument or physical fight with Paul Cézanne. This mystery is woven into the story at various times leaving the reader wanting to know more about their relationship.

Joseph, the journalist stays on as Tata's model for a painting called Man with Orange and after writing a brilliantly successful article about the painting in which he was the model, Raimondo suggests to Tata that he should stay on, as he is good for business. Woven into this story is a part of Joseph's life, his family, particularly his older brother, Rupert, who was badly injured in World War I, his kind sister Flora and their cool-hearted father. Unexpectedly, there's a common thread with the War and Ettie.

The chapters with the uninvited American guests, who are foist upon them, make surprising and curious reading with quite a twist. Surprises keep popping up in the most unexpected places.

This story, while based upon some truths which makes it all the more interesting.It is about  joie de vivre, relationships within family and several other characters and dealing with their personalities, control, yet vulnerablability, art, creating and including two people helping to navigate their way into a much wider world and their life in and beyond their current situations in the 1920s.

This is  a heartily enjoyable book, including reading the acknowledgements. This is a book that I will re-read at a later date, I am sure it will be just as enjoyable.

NOTE: When you click on the links for Booktopia or Apple Books the covers are different but it is the same book.

The Author

Lucy is a graduate of both the Faber Academy and the London Library Emerging Writers Programme. She began writing The Artist  while living in France, and currently splits her time between London and Amsterdam. The Artist has been listed for the BPA First Novel Award, the Yeovil Literary Prize, the Page Turner Awards, the Fiction Factory First Chapter Competition, and was a Finalist in the Spotlight First Novel Award and the Moniack Mhor Emerging Writer Award. Lucy herself has synaesthesia and uses this to play with ways of translating images into words. She has a BA in English Literature and a Masters in World Literatures from the University of Oxford.