A dazzling, richly imagined novel about Peggy Guggenheim--a story of art, family, love, and becoming oneself--by the award-winning author of “Godfrey brilliantly resurrects the avant-garde adventurer Peggy Guggenheim as a feminist icon for our times.”--Jenny Offill, author of “Magnificent . . . Readers will be won over by Godfrey’s incandescent portrait of a singular woman.”-- Venice, 1958. Peggy Guggenheim, heiress and now legendary art collector, sits in the sun at her white marble palazzo on the Grand Canal. She’s in a reflective mood, thinking back on her thrilling, tragic, nearly impossible journey from her sheltered, old-fashioned family in New York to here: iconoclast and independent woman. Rebecca Godfrey’s Rebecca Godfrey’s final book--completed by her friend, the acclaimed writer Leslie Jamison, following Godfrey’s death in 2022--brings to life the woman who helped make the Guggenheim name synonymous with art and genius....

Autorentext

Rebecca Godfrey (1967–2022) was an award-winning novelist and journalist. Her books include The Torn Skirt, finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the award-winning true-crime story Under the Bridge, adapted as a Hulu limited series starring Riley Keough as Rebecca Godfrey. Godfrey earned her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and taught writing at Columbia University. She lived with her husband and daughter in upstate New York.

Leslie Jamison’s books include The Empathy Exams, The Recovering, the novel The Gin Closet, and the memoir Splinters. She teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Klappentext

A dazzling, richly imagined novel about Peggy Guggenheim—a story of art, family, love, and becoming oneself—by the award-winning author of Under the Bridge, now a Hulu limited series starring Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone

“Godfrey brilliantly resurrects the avant-garde adventurer Peggy Guggenheim as a feminist icon for our times.”—Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation

**“Magnificent . . . Readers will be won over by Godfrey’s incandescent portrait of a singular woman.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
**
Venice, 1958. Peggy Guggenheim, heiress and now legendary art collector, sits in the sun at her white marble palazzo on the Grand Canal. She’s in a reflective mood, thinking back on her thrilling, tragic, nearly impossible journey from her sheltered, old-fashioned family in New York to here: iconoclast and independent woman.

Rebecca Godfrey’s Peggy is a blazingly fresh interpretation of a woman who defies every expectation to become an original. The daughter of two Jewish dynasties, Peggy finds her cloistered life turned upside down at fourteen, when her beloved father perishes on the Titanic. His death prompts Peggy to seek a life of passion and personal freedom and, above all, to believe in the transformative power of art. We follow Peggy as she makes her way through the glamorous but sexist and anti-Semitic art worlds of New York and Europe and meet the numerous men who love her (and her money) while underestimating her intellect, talent, and vision. Along the way, Peggy must balance her loyalty to her family with her need to break free from their narrow, snobbish ways and the unexpected restrictions that come with vast fortune.

Rebecca Godfrey’s final book—completed by her friend, the acclaimed writer Leslie Jamison, following Godfrey’s death in 2022—brings to life the woman who helped make the Guggenheim name synonymous with art and genius.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

The Silver Prince

1912

Striped and shot, the tiger lay flat, and I stretched my hungry body across him. He was part treasure, part prey. Though we had so much, I often ignored the chaises and satin chairs, instead gathering my book and lying upon this tattered dead animal. Move, my mother would say, if she happened to be in the room. Peggy, move away from the beast! This request would send my sister, Benita, into fits of giggles. Move away from the beast, Benita would later imitate. The tongue had fallen out, at one point, replaced by a hapless plaster replica. As I read, I would dangle my fingers into the mouth, touching the jagged rise of ebony. Often the head would loll abruptly; the mouth red and raw and somehow alive below the still, crystal eyes.

Oh Peggy, my mother said, move away from the tiger and get off the floor. I would brush the tiger fur with my hand, and stare up at the ceiling, entranced. For a moment, everything in the elegant room felt savage, uneasy.

We were living at the Waldorf-Astoria. We moved there from our former house on 15 East 72nd, right across from the entrance to Central Park. My father was in Paris for business; this is what we were told and what we would dutifully repeat. After weeks of waiting for his expected return, my mother moved us to the hotel. Not to worry. Daniel, my father s brother, lived there as well. The entire floor below ours was for his family; I imagine the Astors were mortified. The Googs are taking over the hotel. Like money and love, these sudden changes in residence were never spoken of in my family. I m fourteen, but believe I m possessed of a knowledge that eludes the rest of them. I know my father will not return.

The morning he left, I begged Victor, his valet, to let me brush my father s mustache. We sang together, a sweet, secret song he d invented for me. French and English. Oui, oui, Peggy. A whistle, a dun-la-dun, and I would twirl. Into his pocket, I sneaked the tiger s tongue.

With him, my father took his secrets, and his shame, packed in one of his seventeen trunks. Silver to the end, he held us each in his arms while all around us the cherry trees of Fifth Avenue erupted into bloom. Clouds above us broke apart. We ran after him. Corseted, silk skirts to our ankles, we were hobbled. Our sailor hats fell off in the breeze, floating lightly over the wheels of his carriage.

Hazel s sobs were heard all up and down Park Avenue. Adeline Havemeyer and Alma Harrington looked down from their windows. My father s carriage continued toward the dark strands of river in a part of the city we d never been. A business trip, my uncle Daniel informed my mother. He seems to have got in his head to start his own company, the I believe, it s to be called the International Steam Company. He looked appalled, for my grandfather had always told the brothers the story of Aesop, they should stick together like a bundle of sticks. Florette, has he ever spoken to you of his business matters?

Do you think he has? Really, Daniel.

Has he ever mentioned He stopped, catching sight of me on the rug. Peggy, he said softly. I did not realize you were there.

She is having an unhealthy love affair with that beast, my mother said. I can t imagine how their children will look.

I am sure they ll be clever, he said.

Dangerous, I countered, flailing backward with arched back and bared teeth.

The St. Regis was sumptuous and dull. The windows were covered with bars and dirty glass. The park was only a sliver of light through the window. I missed my father s whims and treasures, however morbid and lavish.

My mother turned sentry. The fact th