The Velveteen Daughter

In this beautiful novel, Laurel Davis Huber's brilliant writing elegantly captures the complicated lives of two artistic women: author Margery Williams Bianco, who most famously wrote The Velveteen Rabbit, and Pamela, her troubled daughter. The girl, a child prodigy, had her art displayed in galleries in Italy, England and the United States before she was out of her teens. But this early success and ability wreaked havoc on Pamela's psyche, and she struggled throughout her life with depression.

The Velveteen Daughter opens on September 1, 1944, when a distraught Pamela arrives unexpectedly at Margery's New York apartment with her son Lorenzo in tow. Margery makes Lorenzo breakfast, and Pamela goes to lie down; both women separately reflect on the years that led them to this breaking point. Slowly, through a series of flashbacks, the reader learns of Margery's hesitation to display Pamela's talent, overruled by her husband, Francesco. Pamela had an unrequited love affair with the author Richard Hughes, and expressed disgust at her cousin Agnes's marriage to Eugene O'Neill, which both played roles in her own failed marriage.

Huber delicately portrays how each woman longs to reach out to the other, and yet is unable to, trapped in a terrible cycle of love and hesitation. Beautifully written, heartbreakingly captivating and full of literary and artistic magic from the early 20th century, The Velveteen Daughter is sure to appeal to fans of Margery's classic, and to anyone who has struggled to understand their parents or their children. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

Powered by: Xtenit