ABOUT
THE BOOK

The invitation is casual, for one professor to drop by the house of another. The art professor obliges, and when he arrives he is shown a painting. A strikingly beautiful painting that the owner claims is a Vermeer. But why, asks the art professor, is the painting unknown? In Susan Vreeland’s gentle and beautiful new book, the ownership of the painting is traced back to the very moment of its inspiration; and as the painting moves through each owner’s hands, what was long hidden, or forgotten or repressed, quietly surfaces.

Like Vermeer’s paintings, this novel illuminates the poignantly dear moments in people’s lives – the moments when love changes, or hope is lost, or a glorious freedom takes hold. Tied together by a collective admiration, even love, for the painting, Vreeland’s characters remind us how beauty transforms and why we reach for it, what lasts and what in our lives is singular, and unforgettable.