Here, Avery takes us behind her story about the creative and erotic relationship between Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka and the muse for her painting La Belle Rafaela. How did you research the novel? I taught myself the art history I needed to write the novel: I read biographies of artists and sat in on an art history class at Columbia University. Photo by Matthew David Powell. That made me think: What if we considered the trivialized and demoted work that women do in fashion as art?

Paris, In the heady years before the crash, financiers drape their mistresses in Chanel, while expatriates flock to the avant-garde bookshop Shakespeare and Company. Struggling to halt a downward slide toward prostitution, Rafaela agrees to model for the artist, a dispossessed Saint Petersburg aristocrat with a murky past. Ellis Avery gives the reader a tantalizing window into a lost Paris, an age already vanishing as the inexorable forces of history close in on two tangled lives. Spellbinding and provocative, this is a novel about genius and craft, love and desire, regret and, most of all, hope that can transcend time and circumstance.

Avery The Teahouse Fire , , etc. On her way from the Bronx to an arranged marriage in Italy at age 17, Rafaela runs away to Paris, where she quickly becomes part of the demimonde. Rafaela meets year-old Tamara de Lempicka in the Bois de Boulogne a factual encounter , and Tamara takes her home to pose. She is also going through a difficult divorce and has had affairs with men and women. Soon Tamara and Rafaela are lovers.

Your question might be answered by sellers, manufacturers, or customers who bought this product. Please make sure that you've entered a valid question. You can edit your question or post anyway. Please enter a question.