Jane Alison's fifth novel, Villa E, is an impressionistic work of historical fiction that imagines the fraught relationship between Irish designer Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier, the Swiss-French giant of modernist architecture, surrounding a house on France's Côte d'Azur. The intriguing story of the clash between these two strong-willed artists, despite its brevity, raises some vexing questions about gender relations, creativity, and professional rivalry.
In chapters that shift between the perspectives of Eileen and Le Corbusier (known here as "Le Grand"), Alison (Meander, Spiral, Explode), who teaches creative writing at the University of Virginia, describes the self-taught architect Eileen's innovative design of a house that is "intimate and modern but not a machine." In the late 1930s Le Corbusier is invited to lunch, and immediately is seized by the distinctive qualities of this "alarmingly elegant, intelligent place" that's "made not only in Le G's own style but an experiment and critique of his work." During an extended stay alone at the house, he takes the shocking step of covering some of its stark white walls with sexually explicit drawings.
In framing this controversial encounter, Alison shapes vivid interior lives for her two principal characters. Of the pair, Le Corbusier's is the more substantial, as he oscillates between admiration for Eileen's work and profound creative jealousy. The famed architect also reflects on his marriage and a long history of infidelity that appears to color his view of Eileen and her work. Alison's novel is a provocative glimpse of the short but intense intersection of these two deeply creative and idiosyncratic lives. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer