Book Nook - Mrs. Gari Melchers

In the early 1900s, Corinne Mackall met and fell in love with Gari Melchers, a renowned artist, while traveling to the Paris Salon. An accomplished artist in her own right, Corinne and Gari have much in common, and the two are soon married. Corinne envisions a future traversing the art world side by side with her husband in a partnership of equals—hopes that are quickly dashed when she discovers the same gender inequalities that defined her youth afflict the art scene too. Instead, Corinne dedicates more and more time to supporting her husband’s career, even as she finds herself less and less able to focus on her own artwork. When Gari’s career explodes and makes him a household name, comparable to his friends John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler, her plight only becomes more difficult. Will Corinne retain her identity as an artist in her own right? Or will she be defined by her role as Gari’s wife? Based on the true story of Corinne and Gari Melchers, this novel follows their remarkable journey together through life, from an art school in seaside Holland to a studio in Weimar, Germany, before the Great War, and finally to their estate, Belmont, in central Virginia.

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Joyce A. Miller is an author based in the Church Hill section of Richmond, Virginia. She has written and indie-published two books: Joe Harris, the Moon, is a historical fiction based on the true story of Miller’s granduncle, who played baseball in the 1910s/1920s, and Look! You’re Dancing: A Memoir of Dogs, Dance, and Devotion is a memoir of Miller’s adoption journey of six greyhounds. Miller is an active member of James River Writers and the Church Hill Book Club. Before she started writing, Miller worked for over thirty years as a mechanical designer at a nuclear physics laboratory.