All We Know of Love
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Jo Shepherd grew up on a farm in the Pacific Northwest under the loving care of her grandfather, Frank. After spending months nursing him through his final painful illness, Jo receives a vision of the Virgin Mary, who sends her to Italy to live out her dream of becoming an artist. In doing so, Jo must leave behind her home and her best friend Jack, and risk losing him forever.
In Florence, Jo’s intense artistic visions begin to find fruition, but her odyssey is complicated when she meets Chad and Walter, two extraordinary young men. By day, Jo paints–women in a marketplace, the view of the Arno from the Piazzale Michelangelo. At night, both Chad and Walter vie for her attention. As the lives of these three friends become more deeply entwined, the revelation of painful secrets threatens to destroy their delicate balance.
It isn’t until Jo returns home that she begins to face up to the legacy of her time in Italy, her very real grief for the grandfather she lost, and the prospect of a future with or without Jack.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Told with a watery melancholy brightened by flickers of wry humor, this debut novel sends 20-year-old Joanna Shepherd to Florence on behalf of the Virgin Mary. After Joanna's beloved grandfather, Frank--her last living relative, who raised her from the age of four--dies of cancer on their eastern Washington farm, a vision of Mary appears to Joanna in the kitchen, instructing her amid "an overpowering scent of lilacs... and white light" to "go to Europe and become a painter." Joanna plans her departure quickly, her resolve swayed only by a bittersweet farewell to Jack Pearce, a childhood friend, which sparks "years of fantasies." Resolutely, she journeys to Italy, rents a room from an elderly widow, Lena Cabrini, and begins to absorb the magnificent city and its art. Cutting across the Piazza della Repubblica one afternoon, Joanna is drawn by a cellist whose music " want to paint." The captivating musician, Chad Lesa, turns out to be an American studying at the political science institute, and he introduces her to Walter Haffner, a wealthy student who takes a financial interest in Joanna's artwork. They all form an instant connection, but love complicates the trio's dynamics, as do Joanna's abiding feelings for Jack. Schneider's portrait of an artist is convincing, but the novel's real power is in its landscapes, which are rendered so pungently that they become characters in their own right: the rural Pacific Northwest, Florence's busy streets and squares, the Sistine Chapel on a day trip to Rome. Less believable is the romantic fallout from Italy, which steers Joanna to a stereotypical stint as an artist-bohemian in New York. Though spirituality reenters via a series of paintings, the charming incongruity of the Virgin makes no further appearances. A quicksilver pace precludes development of any character other than Joanna and muddles tricky shifts between time frames. Like Joanna's visitation, the story is a jumble of sensory images, sparked by an eloquent vision without a clear path of resolution.
