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The Painted Girls
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The Painted Girls (2013) (edit title/settings)

by Cathy Marie Buchanan (Author) (edit contributors)

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A heartrending, gripping novel about two sisters in Belle Époque Paris. 1878 Paris. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction... read more

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1878 Paris. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

1878 Paris. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir.

Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde.

Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural, and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of “civilized society.” In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation, if not survival, lies with the other.

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First Sentence edit see section history

Monsieur LeBlanc leans against the doorframe, his arms folded over a belly grown round on pork crackling.

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This book is in 2013 Published Books. (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Cathy Marie Buchanan (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59448-624-1
Page Count: 357

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PR9199.4 B825 P35 2013
  • Dewey: 813.6

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