BOOKISH FRIDAY: “A PIECE OF THE WORLD”

Welcome to another Bookish Friday, in which we  share excerpts from books…and connect with other bloggers, who do the same.

Let’s begin the celebration by sharing Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and let’s showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists! What a great way to spend a Friday!

Today’s feature is a book that has been hiding out on my Kindle for more than three years:  A Piece of the World, by Christina Baker Kline.

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Book Beginnings:  1939

I’m working on a quilt patch in the kitchen on a brilliant July afternoon, small squares of fabric and a pincushion and scissors on the table beside me, when I hear the hum of a car engine.  Looking out the window toward the cove, I see a station wagon turn into the field about a hundred yards away.  The engine cuts off and the passenger door swings open and Betsy James gets out, laughing and exclaiming.

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Friday 56:  So later that afternoon, when Papa comes in from the milking, I bring him the box.  “Mamey said this is yours.”

Papa shrugs.  “That’s nothing.  I don’t know why I kept it.  Just bits and pieces I brought with me from Sweden.”

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Synopsis:  To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than twenty years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the twentieth century.

As she did in her beloved smash bestseller Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline interweaves fact and fiction in a powerful novel that illuminates a little-known part of America’s history. Bringing into focus the flesh-and-blood woman behind the portrait, she vividly imagines the life of a woman with a complicated relationship to her family and her past, and a special bond with one of our greatest modern artists.

Told in evocative and lucid prose, A Piece of the World is a story about the burdens and blessings of family history, and how artist and muse can come together to forge a new and timeless legacy.

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Would you keep reading?  I am definitely curious about this book by the author of Orphan Train, a book I have waited a long time to start reading.

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