Artist Soldier Lover Muse

Freshly graduated from Yale in 1935 Henry J. Kapler parlays his talent determination and creative energy into a burgeoning art career in New York under the wing of artists such as Edward Hopper and Reginald Marsh. The young artist first gains notoriety when his depiction of a symbolic interracial handshake between ballplayers is attacked by a knife-wielding assailant at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. Yet even as his art star rises his personal life turns precarious--and perilous--when his love for Fiona a young WPA muralist collides with his growing attraction to the exquisitely beautiful Alice an ex-chorus girl who becomes his model and muse. Alice is the girlfriend of Fionas cousin Jake Powell the hotheaded hard-drinking outfielder for the New York Yankees whose jealousy explodes into abuse and rage endangering the lives of all three. While Henry wrestles with his complicated love life he also struggles mightily to reconcile his pacifism with the rabid patriotism of his Jewish-Russian émigré father. As war draws near Henry faces two difficult choices one of which could cost him his life. Artist Soldier Lover Muse transports the reader to pre-war New York City into the creative mind of the artist and into the lives of major figures from the worlds of art sports and politics. In the tradition of art-centered fiction such as Donna Tartts The Goldfinch Dominic Smiths The Last Painting of Sara de Vos Tracy Chevaliers Girl with a Pearl Earring and B. A. Shapiros The Art Forger it will appeal to art lovers sports enthusiasts and lovers of smart historical fiction.