I’ve been reading a lot. Every time I finished one of the books in this six-part review, I thought, “This was wonderful. I should post about it on my blog.” But, dear fellow readers, did I? No. Instead I read another book. However, these books, now stacked next to my computer, kept harrumphing at me, like when my restless grandchildren who’ve been so good finally run out of patience while waiting for me to take them to the park. And so, I placated the books by telling them I would write a short review for each of them. But things got out of hand, and the two- to three-hundred-word reviews I’d envisioned grew and grew. And try as I might, I couldn’t bring myself to cut any words because I loved the books. So I’m posting the reviews in six parts, in alphabetical order by author’s last name.

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, 1999

Seventeen-year-old Griet is hired out by her parents as a domestic servant to the household of Johannes Vermeer. From the first pages of the novel, it’s clear that something, although unspoken, has transpired between Griet and Vermeer. Griet’s acceptance in the artist’s home is mixed. She is Protestant and the Vermeers are Catholic. She is distrusted and disliked by Vermeer’s wife, one of his daughters, and the head domestic servant. Life is difficult for Griet until one day when Vermeer insists that she be the only person allowed to clean his studio. A choice his mother-in-law completely supports. Vermeer soon relies on Griet to mix his paints, and he occasionally seeks her advice when setting his scenes.

Tracy Chevalier has written a historical novel as exquisite as Johannes Vermeer’s famous painting for which the book is named. Set in the 1660s in Delft, Netherlands, Chevalier portrays the life and paintings of Vermeer as accurately as she can because not much is known about Vermeer. Girl with a Pearl Earring is considered his masterpiece, but the girl in the painting is a mystery. Chevalier’s prose is as artfully chosen and applied to the page just as Vermeer’s brilliant colors and brushstrokes were applied to his canvases. Her novel paints a captivating fictional story about how Vermeer came to paint the girl.

From the standpoint of craft . . .

As a writer I admire Chevalier’s book for the historical details that make the late 17th Century Netherlands come to life. She puts us in the streets and marketplaces of Delft. She takes us inside Vermeer’s home, and gives us a first-row seat to the domestic life of a financially insecure upper-class family and their servants, with all their petty jealousies, passions, kindnesses, and cruelties. Additionally, Chevalier’s novel is worth studying for the great sense simmering tension she creates between Vermeer and Griet.