June 9, 2019 SHOWER THE PEOPLE

It's started. Yup. Wedding showers. It's ALL coming around again. The kids are starting to  get married.  The shower was lovely. It was a traditional shower--what's now called the PERSONAL SHOWER. I hear there are all kinds of showers these days--Jack & Jill Showers--Gift Card Showers--Lingerie Showers--Display Showers--to name a few. It's crazy. The Jack & Jill is for the couple who can't stand to be apart. They make it more of a cocktail party with gifts. OKAY. The Gift Card Shower--although easy-- seems TOO impersonal to me. Do the guests sit around and watch the bride-to-be open envelopes??   On to the Lingerie Shower. Why waste the money.  These days--girls seem to walk around wearing lingerie anyways!! They need-- china--pots--pans--towels--champagne glasses. Another type of shower on the horizon is the Display Shower. Here--guests are asked to bring unwrapped gifts which are then displayed in the room so that the bride doesn't have to waste time opening the gifts. Good idea to save paper-- I guess-- but  I'm definitely a fan of the Personal Shower. Women--gifts--alcohol--good food. Only thing better is having it at home--makes it more personal, Right?? Don't think they had showers in 1639 when the main character of Dominic Smith's book The Last Painting of Sara De Vos was painting her masterpiece.
This wonderful novel is set in three different time periods and told through different characters. Sara De Vos, one of the main characters, is the first woman artist admitted into the City Guild of St. Luke in Amsterdam 1631. After the death of her daughter during the plague, De Vos paints a haunting work entitled At The Edge of the Wood that eventually ends up being purchased by the De Groot family.  Jump to the 1950's--Marty De Groot is a wealthy lawyer from Manhattan whose family has owned the painting for over three hundred years. The painting now proudly hangs in his bedroom and is known as Sara De Vos' last surviving work. Ellie Shipley is a struggling art history graduate student who lives in the Brooklyn. Against her better judgment, she agrees to forge the De Vos  painting--a decision that ultimately upends her quiet life in Sydney forty years later. Now a famous art historian and curator, Shipley comes into possession of the original and the forgery while hanging a show. What happened to Sara De Vos after her daughter died and her husband left her? How did the De Groot family come into possession of the painting? How was it stolen from Marty? What happened when Marty and Ellie met? Find out the answer to these and so many other questions when you read this part mystery--part love story--part art lesson that will stick with you forever because the prose is brilliant.