Sophie Haydock

Vienna in the early 20th Century, a city of contrasts, bohemian and yet conservative and at the centre of art. Into this comes Egon Schiele, a talented but poor son of a stationmaster, determined to be a worthy successor to his hero, Gustav Klimt. Then there are the women, his sister Gertrude, his wife Edith, his model Vally and his sister-in-law Adele, each has a tale to tell and the story of each is the story of Schiele.
I loved this book in the end but it took me a while to get there! I've never been a great fan of Schiele's work but can admire it, unlike Klimt who is far more accessible. The setting is really intriguing, Vienna before the First World War was the epicentre of culture and Schiele's radical art was definitely sonething different. However what makes this book work is Haydock's choice to tell the story of the artist through the four women, this adds another dimension and focuses on the idea that women were either hausfraus or whores. the least successful sections were those set in 1968, I can see that they were created to provide a structure for the book but they were not as good as the rest.… (mehr)