Vanessa and her sister
By: Priya Parmar
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 348
ISBN-13: 9780804176378
Subjects: Bloomsbury group; Women artists; Sisters; Intellectual life; English Women authors; Fiction
Description: "For fans of The Paris Wife and Loving Frank comes a captivating novel that offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of Vanessa Bell, her sister Virginia Woolf, and the controversial and popular circle of intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Group. London, 1905: The city is alight with change, and the Stephen siblings are at the forefront. Vanessa, Virginia, Thoby, and Adrian are leaving behind their childhood home and taking a house in the leafy heart of avant-garde Bloomsbury. There they bring together a glittering circle of bright, outrageous artistic friends who will grow into legend and come to be known as the Bloomsbury Group. And at the center of this charmed circle are the devoted, gifted sisters: Vanessa, the painter, and Virginia, the writer. Each member of the group will go on to earn fame and success, but so far Vanessa Bell has never sold a painting. Virginia Woolf's book review has just been turned down by The Times. Lytton Strachey has not published anything. E.M. Forster has finished his first novel but does not like the title. Leonard Woolf is still a civil servant in Ceylon, and John Maynard Keynes is looking for a job. Together, this sparkling coterie of artists and intellectuals throw away convention and embrace the wild freedom of being young, single bohemians in London. But the landscape shifts when Vanessa unexpectedly falls in love and her sister feels dangerously abandoned. Eerily possessive, charismatic, manipulative, and brilliant, Virginia has always lived in the shelter of Vanessa's constant attention and encouragement. Without it, she careens toward self-destruction and madness. As tragedy and betrayal threaten to destroy the family, Vanessa must decide if it is finally time to protect her own happiness above all else. The work of exciting young newcomer Priya Parmar, Vanessa and Her Sister exquisitely captures the champagne-heady days of prewar London and the extraordinary lives of sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. Advance praise for Vanessa and Her Sister. "Priya Parmar is on a high-wire act all her own in this radiantly original novel about the Bloomsbury Set. Irrepressible, with charm and brio to spare, Vanessa and Her Sister boldly invites us to that moment in history when famous minds sparked and collided, shaping the terrain of art and letters. But it's the two sisters who are most bewitching here--rocking on the brink of unforgivable transgression, changing each other in ways far-reaching and profound. Prepare to be dazzled."--Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife "With sparkling wit and insight, Priya Parmar sets us down into the legendary Bloomsbury household of the Stephen siblings, where sisters Vanessa and Virginia vie for love and primacy amid a collection of eccentric guests. Vanessa and Her Sister kidnapped me for a couple of days. I couldn't put it down."--Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank "This is the novel I didn't know I was waiting for, and it is, quite simply, astonishing. Not just because of Priya Parmar's preternatural skill at evoking the moment when the lid was coming off the Victorians and the heated talk about art, life, and sex swirled through Bloomsbury, but because of how she has caught the two sisters at the center of that swirl--the women who would become Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. Vanessa and Her Sister is beautiful and wise, and as deft as a stroke upon the canvas."--Sarah Blake, author of The Postmistress"--

"In 1905, Virginia and Vanessa Stephens and their brothers Thoby and Adrian moved to unfashionable, bohemian Bloomsbury. All in their twenties, orphaned and unmarried, they began holding Thursday night gatherings in their unchaperoned, unconventional drawing room. Most of the young guests in that room would become famous, breaking the old rules and blazing their own new paths. It is from Vanessa's point of view at the center of this eccentric, charmed circle of artists and intellectuals that this novel is told, with unsparing honesty about their friendships, their love affairs, and in particular her own troubled relationship with her complicated, brilliant sister Virginia"--