Page 1074 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

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Susan Vreeland’s novel, “Girl in Hyacinth Blue,” traces a painting
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from its current owner’s hands back to the moment of its origin. The

painting depicts a young chick sitting by a window, lost in thought,
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her sewing forgotten in her lap. In a series of vignettes, Vreelands
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story traces the painting through its various owners. A professor’s
love of the painting, which he believes to be a Vermeer, is
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overshadowed only buy his guilt. He is consumed by the knowledge

that his father, a Nazi, took it from a jewish family as he sent them
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off to die in a prison camp. In another vignette a married man keeps
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the painting because it reminds him of a lost love. Another story
tells of a father who sells the painting to feed his child after the
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child’s mother is hanged! As the story winds back threw the

centuries through owner after owner, only the painting remains the
same, luminous and beautiful, a scrap of ordinary life captured on

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canvas. As the owner’s admire the luminous beauty of the painting,
so may readers appreciate the luminous quality of Vreeland’s writing

and the poignancy of the characters as scraps of their extraordinary
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lives are captured on paper. Girl in Hyacinth Blue is a novel too
be savored and enjoyed.

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