The Muralist

Alizee Benoit is a young, beautiful, talented American painter

working for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in NYC in the late 1930’s. This organization was set up by President Roosevelt to create jobs and work to build roads, bridges and this particular group of artists were hired to paint murals for public spaces. Amongst this group were Pollock, Krasner and Rothko who were young at the time but went on to become incredibly famous later in their careers.  Alizee, born in Boston to French parents that died in a horrible accident, is alone in America. Her family in France is facing the atrocities of Hitler and Alizee does everything in her power to search for visas and opportunities to help them escape. The story moves through these difficult times and flashes forward to 2015. Danielle Abrams, a young girl working at Christie’s is facing her own modern day dilemmas. Dani is the Great Niece of Alizee and when a rare piece of artwork is discovered, Dani begins her own investigation to find the truth. She longs to know how Alizee, with such talent and a full life, mysteriously disappeared in 1940, never to be heard from again. The war, the politics, the art and all the characters in this novel had me mesmerized and I could not turn these pages fast enough. Highly recommend this fantastic work of historical fiction that you are sure to love!