Painting the Light
By Sally Cabot Gunning
(351 pages, fiction, 2021)
In 1893 Ida Russell is a young woman living in Boston, finding her way as an artist. She is enrolled in Boston’s Museum School and has a comfortable life living with her family. She’s looking forward to becoming a known artist in watercolors. But tragedy strikes her family and Ida is left alone in the world. She is grief-stricken and can barely get through the day. A handsome and attentive young man, Ezra Pease, befriends her and Ida slowly starts to feel better. He asks her to marry him, and Ida accepts. They move from the city of Boston to live on a sheep farm on rural Martha’s Vineyard.
Living on a farm is not what Ida envisioned. It is enormously hard work, and she has no time to paint. She and Ezra exchange harsh words and grow further and further apart. Ezra has turned from a loving suitor into a belligerent husband. Ida also must deal with Ezra’s prickly aunt and flighty cousin. She learns a lot about farming from a neighbor, Lem, and values his help.
Ezra and his partner Mose Barstow are scheduled on a trip to Boston. The ship that they are booked on runs into a storm and sinks. Ida is suddenly a young widow. She has such mixed feelings about losing Ezra. She travels to Boston to the place where they have stored the recovered bodies. She cannot identify Ezra, but some of the bodies are unrecognizable, and not all were found.
Ida must now settle the affairs of Ezra’s estate, and work with Henry, Mose’s brother, to sell what they can of the business. A friendship develops between them, and then an attraction. But Henry is married and has two children. Henry gives Ida a bicycle, and the feeling of freedom that this gives Ida is immense!
Ida must navigate her own way, bargaining with what little she has. She is a fascinating character. Ida can be stubborn and snappish, but also generous and kind. Ida must decide what is right for her, and if painting can be part of her life again.
This is a captivating book about an intelligent, determined woman dealing with loss and betrayal, one who struggles to reinvent herself in her new home on Martha’s Vineyard.
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Robbin Bailey
