Portland Public Library and Print: A Bookstore host Spotlight Lecture with
Whitney Scharer in conversation with Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
Wednesday, May 2 at 6:30pm
in the Rines Auditorium
Portland, Maine - Join us for a conversation between Whitney Scharer and Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, to discuss Scharer’s new book The Age of Light. The conversation will be held on Wednesday, May 2 at 6:30pm in the Rines Auditorium.
About the book
"Sweeping from the glamour of 1930's Paris through the battlefields of World War II and into the war's long shadow, The Age of Light is a startlingly modern love story and a mesmerizing portrait of a woman's self-transformation from muse into artist."
--Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere
A captivating debut novel by Whitney Scharer, The Age of Light tells the story of Vogue model turned renowned photographer Lee Miller, and her search to forge a new identity as an artist after a life spent as a muse. "I'd rather take a photograph than be one," she declares after she arrives in Paris in 1929, where she soon catches the eye of the famous Surrealist Man Ray. Though he wants to use her only as a model, Lee convinces him to take her on as his assistant and teach her everything he knows. But Man Ray turns out to be an egotistical, charismatic force, and as they work together in the darkroom, their personal and professional lives become intimately entwined, changing the course of Lee's life forever.
Lee's journey takes us from the cabarets of bohemian Paris to the battlefields of war-torn Europe during WWII, from discovering radical new photography techniques to documenting the liberation of the concentration camps as one of the first female war correspondents. Through it all, Lee must grapple with the question of whether it's possible to reconcile romantic desire with artistic ambition—and what she will have to sacrifice to do so.
Told in interweaving timelines, this sensuous, richly detailed novel brings Lee Miller—a brilliant and pioneering artist—out of the shadows of a man's legacy and into the light.
About the authors
Whitney Scharer holds a BA in English Literature from Wesleyan University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous journals including New Flash Fiction Review, Cimarron Review, and Bellevue Literary Review. Her first novel, The Age of Light, based on the life of pioneering photographer Lee Miller, was published by Little, Brown (US) and Picador (UK) in February, 2019, and is forthcoming from over a dozen other countries. She lives with her husband and daughter in Arlington, MA. Recognitions include: Virginia Center For the Arts Residency; St. Botolph Emerging Artists Grant 2015; 2014 Somerville Arts Council Artists Fellow; Loren D. Milliman Fellowship for second year of graduate study; Gerberding Fellowship for study in Rome; Adelphic Scholarship for Wesleyan Writers’ Conference
Alexandria (Alex) Marzano-Lesnevich is the author of THE FACT OF A BODY: A Murder and a Memoir, receipient of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir, the 2018 Chautauqua Prize, and the Prix France Inter-JDD, an award for one book of any genre in the world. Named one of the best books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Audible.com, Bustle, Book Riot, The Times of London, The Guardian, and The Sydney Press Herald, it was an Indie Next Pick and a Junior Library Guild selection, long-listed for the Gordon Burn Prize, short-listed for the CWA Gold Dagger, and a finalist for a New England Book Award, a Goodreads Choice Award, and the Grand Prix des lectrices ELLE, and has been translated into eight languages. The recipient of fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, and Yaddo, as well as a Rona Jaffe Award, Marzano-Lesnevich has essays published or forthcoming in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Oxford American, and Harpers. They now live in Portland, Maine and are an Assistant Professor of English at Bowdoin College.
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