Girl in Hyacinth Blue

This lovely, lyrical novel traces the history of a painting. Each chapter tells the story of a different owner and a different world, sometimes tender, sometimes turbulent, through which the tranquil work of art travels, always playing an important role in the lives of the people who come into contact with it. I found this book touching and fascinating; there is a sense of a mystery unfolding as one travels back in time towards the original moment of inspiration. I recommend it. Cathryn Pisarski, Editor of Cune Magazine

"Vreeland paints her canvas with the sure strokes of a master craftsman."
— Publishers Weekly
" . . . wonderful . . . . Extraordinarily skilled . . . deft, perceptive, full of learning, deeply moving." — Kirkus Reviews
" . . . breathtaking . . . ."— John Dufresne

From the second chapter, A Night Different from All Other Nights,
The moment they walked in with the painting, while it was still wrapped, Mother straightened up and looked from her to Father as if she could tell something significant had happened. Hannah remembered feeling light-headed as she walked through the rooms choosing a place, until she settled on the dining room above the sideboard. She unwrapped it and held it up. "See Mamela, how lovely?" Sitting bolt upright across from it at the dining table, just where she was sitting now, she was the last to go to bed that night. . . it became clear to her what made her love the girl in the painting. It was her quietness. A painting, after all, can't speak. Yet she felt this girl, sitting inside a room but looking out, was probably quiet by nature, like she was. But that didn't mean that the girl didn't want anything, like Mother said about her. Her face told her she probably wanted something so deep or so remote that she never dared breathe it but was thinking about it there by the window. And not only wanted. She was capable of doing some great wild loving thing. Yes, oh yes.

MacMurray and Beck is a general trade publisher of personal nonfiction and reflective, literary novels with contemporary settings. Their editors are also drawn to works that contemplate the roles that geography, culture, family, and tradition play in our efforts to define ourselves. They search for works that are free of the modern habit of accepting the world without thought. Visit www.macmurraybeck.com for more information.

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