Product Description

Lost, found, stolen, strayed, sold, fought over...This engrossing, beautifully crafted novel follows the fictional adventures, over a hundred years, of an early 20th-century painting and the women whose lives it touches. It opens with bold, passionate Gwen, struggling to be an artist, leaving for Paris where she becomes Rodin's lover and paints a small, intimate picture of a quiet corner of her attic room...Then, there's Charlotte, a dreamy intellectual Edwardian girl, and Stella, Lucasta, Ailsa and finally young Gillian, who share an unspoken desire to have for themselves a tranquil golden place like that in the painting. Quintessential Forster, this is a novel about women's lives, about what it means and what it costs to be both a woman and an artist, and an unusual, compelling look at a beautiful painting and its imagined afterlife.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13428 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Times
'A delicately written, beautifully crafted novel.'

Simon Humphreys – Mail on Sunday
'fine novel…an inspired reflection on the redemptive potential of art’

Scotsman Saturday Fiction Round Up.
Rev by Allan Massie.

Customer Reviews

Back on form
Margaret Forster is right back on form with this novel. I was sadly disappointed with her last one Is There Anything You Want but Keeping The World Away is a brilliant return to form. The story of the painting and the women whose lives it touched was grippint, like a short series of linked novellas, the women all very different but all connected through ownership of a small painting.

This book makes it clear why Margaret Fiorster is one author whose novels I will always buy as soon as they come out, she is incapable of writing a bad book, her disappointing novel was only disappointing against her usual high standards but still a book lesser authors would struggle to write.

Beautiful
A novel following the journey of a small but intriguing painting through the 20th century, this could have been a weighty, academic or predictable novel. In Forster's hands it is affecting, intruiging and powerful - all of this achieved without recourse to mannerism, bodice-ripping or other devices common to historical fiction. Few living writers are as effortlessy persuasive as Forser, whether on the subject of art or the perspectives of women through time. This is a literary novel, but at the same time a great and surprising read. I loved it.

Evocative and intriguing
A beatifully wrought story of a seemingly modest but intriguing work of art making its way through the 20th century, and touching the lives of different women along the way. The concept may seem academic, but Forster's perception, zest and powers of empathy make it a delightful and surprising journey, peopled with characters it is delightful to stay with. A very satisfying read from one of our best living authors.