Described as “luminous” by Los Angeles Festival of Books judge Diane Smith, The Calamity of Desire and Other Stories includes seven short stories and one novella that weave famous works of art with sometimes real, sometimes fictional artists and protagonists, to explore the healing power of art and the boundaries of the human heart.

 

The title story of the collection, “The Calamity of Desire,” inspired by Gustav Klimt’s painting The Death of Ria Munk, is narrated by the ghost of a young Viennese woman who commits suicide over a broken heart. As Klimt attempts her death portrait, Ria’s ghost narrates his efforts, relives her failed love affair, and comes to terms with her suicide. Once stolen by the Nazis, the painting now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

In “Still Life with Cherries,” Louise Moillon, the first female artist to be accepted into the French Academy of Art, grows up in 17th century Paris during the Huguenot/Catholic conflict and finds her voice as a painter; in the novella “Women Bathing,” a young French woman moves to Paris to follow her dreams, models for the now-aging Auguste Renoir, and becomes involved in the Dreyfus Affair. Other artists and their works in the collection include Diego Velásquez, John Singer Sargent, and Paul Gauguin.

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