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Tracy Chevalier is the author of Falling Angels, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and The Virgin Blue. Visit her website at http://www.tchevalier.com.
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Falling Angels
A fashionable London cemetery, January 1901: Two graves stand side by side, one decorated with an oversize classical urn, the other with a sentimental marble angel. Two families, visiting their respective graves on the day after Queen Victoria's death, teeter on the brink of a new era. The Colemans and the Waterhouses are divided by social class as well as taste. They would certainly not have become acquainted had not their two girls, meeting behind the tombstones, become best friends. And, even more unsuitably, become involved with the gravedigger's muddy son. As the girls grow up, as the new king changes social customs, as a new, forward-thinking era takes wing, the lives and fortunes of the two families become more and more closely intertwined-neighbors in life as well as death.
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Tracy Chevalier's Summer Reading List
The Piano Tuner
by Daniel Mason
This novel is coming out in the fall, and I’ve been sent an advance review copy. It’s about a London piano tuner sent to Burma in the late 19th century to tune the piano of an eccentric British army officer. There was a huge fuss made about this book in the publishing industry --- big advance, young writer, all that hoopla --- and I’m very curious.
Everything is Illuminated
by Jonathan Safran Foer
Another novel generating loads of hoopla: young writer, big subject (Holocaust), experimental writing, character with same name as author. Again I’m very curious.
The Age of Innocence
by Edith Wharton
After reading all these youngsters whose talent is snapping at my heels, it will be a great relief to pick up a classic by someone with nothing to prove. I read The House of Mirth recently and felt I wanted to read another Wharton immediately. Plus I’ve been ashamed to admit I hadn’t read Wharton before and want to be able to hold my head up.
English Passengers
by Matthew Kneale
This novel, set on a boat sailing to Tasmania in the 19th century, was critically applauded and won lots of prizes. Most importantly, my husband loved it --- it is apparently a rollicking story and beautifully written.
The World Lit Only by Fire
by William Manchester
I always try to read at least one nonfiction book over the summer. This one is about late medieval-early Renaissance Europe, and is part of the research I’m doing on my next novel. I heard about it from a wonderful book website called readerville.com.
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