The Bridal Chair: A Novel by Gloria Goldreich (English) Paperback Book

Description: The Bridal Chair by Gloria Goldreich In prose as painterly and evocative as Chagalls own dazzling brushstrokes, Gloria Goldreich finely evokes one of the most significant masters of modern art through the discerning eyes of [his] loyally protective daughter.--Cynthia Ozick, award-winning author of Foreign Bodies An exquisite, haunting exploration of the complex mind of Marc Chagall, and the artists famous chair, through the eyes of his daughter during World War II--perfect for fans of Mrs. Poe and The Paris Wife Beautiful Ida Chagall, the only daughter of Marc Chagall, is blossoming in the Paris art world beyond her fathers controlling gaze. But, her newfound independence is cut short by the chaos of World War II. In Nazi-occupied Paris, her fathers status as a Jewish artist has made them all targets, but his devotion to his art blinds him to their danger. When Ida falls in love and Chagall angrily paints an empty wedding chair in response, she faces an impossible choice: Does she fight to escape her fathers shadow entirely, or abandon her ambitions to save Chagall from the peril in Paris, his enemies, and himself? Brimming with historic personalities from WWII Europe, America and Israel, The Bridal Chair is a stunning portrait of love, fortitude, and the sharp divide between art and real life. Only Gloria Goldreich could write a novel so grounded in historical truths yet so exuberantly imaginative. The Bridal Chair is Goldreich at her best, with a mesmerizing plot, elegant images, and a remarkable heroine who...will remain with you long after the last page.--Francine Klagsburn, Jewish Week columnist and acclaimed author of Voices of Wisdom Filled with fascinating details about the art world and colorful real-life characters, this novel may appeal to historical fiction fans who enjoyed Natasha Solomonss The House at Tyneford and Tatiana de Rosnays Sarahs Key .-- Library Journal FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Gloria Goldreich lives in Tuckahoe, NY. Review Text "Only Gloria Goldreich could write a novel so grounded in historical truths yet so exuberantly imaginative. THE BRIDAL CHAIR is Goldreich at her best, with a mesmerizing plot, elegant images, and a remarkable heroine who shines through the whole. Ida Chagall will remain with you long after youve read the last page of her story. And her fathers art will never seem the same." - Francine Klagsbrun, acclaimed author and columnist for Jewish Week Review Quote "Only Gloria Goldreich could write a novel so grounded in historical truths yet so exuberantly imaginative. THE BRIDAL CHAIR is Goldreich at her best, with a mesmerizing plot, elegant images, and a remarkable heroine who shines through the whole. Ida Chagall will remain with you long after youve read the last page of her story. And her fathers art will never seem the same." -- Francine Klagsbrun, acclaimed author and columnist for Jewish Week Excerpt from Book Chapter One She is gripped by a terror she cannot name, but she is certain that she is in danger, grave danger. Her breath comes in labored gasps. She is running, racing. The taps on the heels of her patent leather shoes clatter against the cobblestones, and her heart beats wildly as though struggling to match her frantic pace. Her parents grip her hands-her mothers sharp nails dig into her right palm, and her fathers grasp on her left is painfully tight. "Faster, Idotchka. Faster." They speak in unison. She trembles at the fear in their voices. Their pursuers draw closer, booted feet beating in tympanic hate, horses hooves pounding ominously. She cannot go any faster. She feels her energy draining, her legs faltering. Tears streak her cheeks. How angry they will be with her if she should fall. She does not want them to be angry, her mamochka, her papochka. And then, suddenly, their race is over, and they are lifted to the heavens. They are soaring, the three of them, hands linked, hearts lightened, flying skyward. Her parents arms have become wings that scissor their way through a sky no longer draped in velvet darkness but wondrously studded with rainbow-colored flowers. A vagrant wind plays with her auburn curls, and she laughs as the thick tendrils tickle her cheeks. Her pinafore billows out into a great puff of whiteness that will surely keep her afloat. She glances at her mother, who glides so easily through the air, a blackbird of a woman, her hair a cap of polished ebony, the velvet dress that hugs her slender body the color of night. She turns her head to the left and she sees that her fathers beret has fallen and his fine silken hair frames his elfin face; stray strands briefly veil his bright blue eyes. He smiles; his daughters hand is so light and trusting in his own. He is at home in this flower-strewn heaven. He will paint these skies, she knows, when they are safe and out of harms way. But for now, their flight continues. They float, the three of them, like zephyrs borne on soft breezes, cushioned by gentle clouds, high above the burning villages and the dark columns of soldiers tramping the country they had once called their own. Mother Russia has cast them out. They are orphaned refugees, rootless and rejected, but they are winging their way to a safe haven. They do not speak, because language is lost to them. The quiet settles over them in a soothing coverlet embroidered with hope and promise. Wordless, soundless. Still half asleep, safe in her bed, she stretched languidly and opened her eyes to the golden light of early morning streaming through the wide window of her bedroom. A bird sang with plaintive sweetness and she hurried to the window. The solitary warbler teetered on a fragile branch of the lemon tree and then soared off into the cloudless summer sky. "Au revoir," she called softly and looked down at the garden where her parents sat opposite each other in their wicker chairs, talking softly as they sipped their morning coffee. Their voices drifted through the open window as their spoons clinked musically against their china cups. She watched them for a moment and then turned, stripped off her white nightgown, and stood naked before her full-length mirror. She studied the curves of her body, the fine-boned contour of her face. She lifted her mass of bright hair and allowed it to fall again to her shoulders. Her reflection reassured her. She passed her hands across the tender fullness of her breasts and felt the power of her nascent womanhood. She was no longer the frightened small girl of her nightmare. The dream was banished. The painful past was behind her. She had no need of a celestial haven. She willed herself to triumph over the sadness that too often lingered in the aftermath of her haunted sleep. She turned her head, glanced at herself in profile, practiced a smile, practiced a frown. Am I pretty? she wondered. Am I beautiful? Will Michel find me much changed? There was an impatient knock at her bedroom door; her name was called once and then again. "Mademoiselle Ida! Mademoiselle Ida!" The harsh voice of Katya, the Polish maid, irritable and accusatory, pierced her reverie. "It is very late. Your parents are waiting for you." "Tell them Ill be down in just a few minutes." A grunt and then heavy footfalls retreated in reproach. Ida shrugged. She knew that Katya did not like her, did not like being a maid in a Jewish home. But that was of no importance. Katya, as her mother frequently pointed out, was lucky to be working for the Chagalls. They were kind employers, Katyas wages were paid on time, she ate the same food as the family, and transport to church on Sundays and festivals was provided. She dismissed Katya from her thoughts, splashed her face with cold water, and dressed quickly, choosing a pale blue, pearl-buttoned dress of a gossamer fabric that slipped off easily and would let her swiftly disrobe. Her father had told her that he wanted her to pose for him before she left for the alpine encampment so that he might complete the series of nude studies he had begun months earlier, alternating at whim between watercolor and gouache, charcoal and oil. Her father had used his brush over the years to create a visual journal of her life, chronicling the days of her playful childhood, her moody adolescence, and now her emergent young womanhood. The title of each effort was scrawled in his looping script across the back of the work, a claim of ownership and provenance. There was Ida on the Swing, a portrait in motion, painted swiftly as she thrust herself skyward, her chubby legs vigorously pumping, the wind burnishing her cheeks. He had taken more time in painting Ida at the Window, capturing her as she stared dreamily through the shimmering glass while the sun sank over their Montchauvet home, setting the waters of the Seine on fire. "What are you thinking about, Idotchka?" her father had asked that day as his brush flew across the canvas, his eyes narrowed in concentration. She had thought then to share her recurring dream of frantic flight with him so that he might paint that nocturnal fantasy into a tactile reality, but she had remained silent. The dream was her own, not to be co-opted by his brush and palette. She took a perverse pleasure in keeping it secret. She had, after all, so few secrets from her parents. They had laid claim to every aspect of her life, keeping her close from the day of her birth. Sometimes she thought that they monitored the very breaths she took and seized upon her moods, saddened by her sadness, joyful in her joy. She choked on their vigilance; she resented their obsessive insistence that they possess every aspect of her being and then felt a disloyalty that shamed her. She was fortunate to be their daughter, the beloved legatee of their fame and fortune and unconditional love. And she loved them deeply in return. She understood that their concern for her was born of the uncertainty and the suffering they had endured. Of course they were frightened. She accepted their fear, submitted to it. She allowed them to believe that they were the conservators of her life. But her dreams, her beautiful and terrifying nocturnal odysseys, those were her own, as was the secret she had held so close within her heart throughout the year. It thrilled her that she had managed to refrain from telling her parents about Michel. He belonged only to her. Michel. Her Michel. She loved the very sound of his name. She had thought of his fine-featured face, of his soft and thoughtful voice, as the long months of their separation drifted slowly by. Her anticipation of their next meeting had intensified during these last sultry days of summer as she posed for her father, hour after hour, never stirring when he left his easel to more closely examine the dark areolae of her nipples, the tangled rise of the russet curls between her legs. The intensity of that gaze never unnerved her. He was Marc Chagall, and he looked at her neither as man nor father but as an artist in the throes of creation. It was Michel who saw her with a lovers eye, Michel whom she would see in only a few days time after the long year of separation. She smiled at the thought, threaded a blue ribbon through her hair, and glided, barefoot, through the sunlit house to join her parents at breakfast in the walled garden. The French doors slid open and they turned to her at once, their faces bright with pleasure. "Ah, our Ida." Her father rose and kissed her on both cheeks. She knelt before her mother, felt Bellas soft hands gentle upon her head. This was, as always, their morning greeting, a coming together after a single night as though they had been long parted. It was as though they saw each day of their togetherness as a gift, her presence in their lives, and perhaps their lives themselves, as a miracle. She wondered if they ever dreamed of desperately fleeing danger and despair and flying into freedom. Perhaps their dreams, like her own, were embroidered with dark-threaded memories of the lost land of their birth, the village of their youth. Did the faces of family and friends, long vanished from their lives, drift above them in the darkness of the night, like the celestial flowers of her own dream? But of course, they would not share such thoughts with her. She was their pampered virginal daughter, to be vigilantly protected against the harshness of life. They had never even sent her to school because they so feared any threat and danger. Other children were cruel. Crowded classrooms bred disease. Broad avenues and narrow streets were haunted by unknown strangers, speeding vehicles. They could not risk exposing their Ida to danger. She was the repository of their Details ISBN1492603260 Author Gloria Goldreich Short Title BRIDAL CHAIR Pages 496 Publisher Sourcebooks Landmark Language English ISBN-10 1492603260 ISBN-13 9781492603269 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 813.54 Year 2015 Publication Date 2015-03-03 Imprint Sourcebooks Landmark Subtitle A Novel Audience General/Trade We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:137395418;

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