Unveiling the Secret Lives Behind Renoir’s Legacy: Art, Betrayal, and War Exposed
And while I finished the book with, appropriately, impressions of Alice, Elisabeth, Irène and their mother Louise, I wanted more — especially in the cheeky voice that Ostler occasionally allows to emerge, as when she writes of a socialite fallen on hard times, “What a contrast to her former mink-and-martini Manhattan life,” or when she includes a random footnote about the “Unlucky Mummy” alleged to have sunk with the Titanic (!).
But that is not to deny the significant accomplishment of this enthusiastic, encyclopedic record of three sisters and their fates. It’s a reminder of how easily all forms of hatred rise — and how easily any of us can be blinded by glitter. At least, in their portrait, they are smiling and unaware of the future forever.
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