The Age of Light

I love to read about artists in Paris in the 1930s. And this book is about a woman who tries to leave the world of modeling to become a photographer, and then she morphs again into one of the only WW2 journalists.

Lee Miller was a real person and she fell in love with Surrealist Man Ray in Paris. 

I am a lover of art and photography. The Age of Light taught me about both. Plus, it promised to show me a steamy romance, a snapshot of a passionate woman desperate to heal from childhood sexual abuse, and the high price she paid for her artistic success. Enter—former Vogue model Lee Miller.

This clearly is a story of turning trauma into creativity. As the Me Too movement has demonstrated how many women have survived sexual assault, the value of this novel should not be overlooked.

I found myself reading outside my comfort zone when Miller meets her lover on… show more.

I have always had a fascination with Lee Miller, but would have been too much in awe of her to attempt a fictionalised version of her life. And yet debut novelist Whitney Scharer did just that, triggering a bidding war in the publishing world.

The focus of the novel is one episode in the life of an extraordinary woman. Scharer parachutes us straight into bohemian Paris, 1929. Lee Miller has abandoned a successful career as a model at New York’s Vogue to pursue a dream. She doesn’t want to be in front of the camera any longer, she wants to… show more.

In The Age of Light, protagonist Lee Miller is both model (for surrealist photographer Man Ray) and artist—much like Georgia O’Keeffe, the muse and hub of my own novel.  Lee’s story, as she struggles with the question of how to stay true to herself while fulfilling her artistic ambition—and what that fulfillment may cost her—resonates strongly with me. It’s a struggle that so many women can relate to! 

It happened that I know the father of this incredible and talented author. Therefore, when I learned his daughter had published this novel, I had to read it. The title and the cover are so compelling, I fell in love with them almost immediately. I knew nothing about this heroine who loved art and independence, who moved from New York to the bohemian Paris in the 1930s. This debut novel is based on the life of Lee Miller, who started her career as a Vogue fashion model but became an art photographer, in order to be in charge of her… show more.