{"id":8524,"date":"2021-08-11T11:16:19","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T11:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8524"},"modified":"2021-12-10T11:57:02","modified_gmt":"2021-12-10T11:57:02","slug":"cut-out-by-michele-roberts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8524","title":{"rendered":"Cut Out by Mich\u00e8le Roberts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Sandstone Press 12 August 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

272pp, hardback, \u00a314.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The latest novel from this immersive author is the story of three convent-educated Proven\u00e7al country girls, schoolfriends whose postwar lives intersect with that of the great French artist, Henri Matisse, in his final phase. Sixty years on, librarian Denis travels from London to the South of France, to visit the last survivor of the trio – his godmother, Cl\u00e9mence, who has sent for him on learning of his mother\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Denis\u2019s journey from the present to Clem\u00e9nce\u2019s past and back is presented in alternate chapters interleaved with vivid descriptions of photographs of Matisse at work on his cut-outs, taken by one of the story\u2019s subsidiary characters.\u00a0 Like so much else in this novel, these imaginary photographs sound extraordinarily convincing – familiar, even, to anyone who has studied Matisse, seen the archive or visited exhibitions of his work.<\/p>\n

What is less familiar is Roberts\u2019s emphasis on life below stairs and in the background of the artist\u2019s life.\u00a0 Here, she gives centre stage to a woman who wants to be an artist and does her damnedest to free herself from the expectations of society.<\/p>\n

Daughter of a dressmaker, and first encountered as a young girl helping out when the local bakery takes in paying guests, Cl\u00e9mence uses every chance she gets to skip over a wall and steal some free time alone with a stub of pencil and a couple of empty blue sugar bags filched from the kitchen drawer.\u00a0 When she runs away from home, she lands a job as chambermaid at the Hotel Regina in Nice, where her friend Monique (destined for life as a nun, and suggested here as the inspiration behind Matisse\u2019s famous designs for the chapel at Vence) is night-nurse to the Master.<\/p>\n

In one of the most memorable scenes in the book, the two young women dress up in exotic clothes from Matisse\u2019s studio and pretend to be his assistants. Their friend Berthe has married a young English diplomat.\u00a0 She keeps suggesting that Cl\u00e9mence visit them in Paris.\u00a0 When the time comes for this, Cl\u00e9mence is in serious trouble, and it is Matisse himself who sends her, directly to his wife Am\u00e9lie, who gives her refuge and finds her work in the ateliers<\/em> of the Folies Berg\u00e8res.<\/p>\n

Denis is Berthe\u2019s son.\u00a0 Raised in London, gay, ageing, he feels his mixed heritage acutely.\u00a0 Gone are the childhood summers spent in France with his artistic godmother; gone, too, his mother\u2019s French cooking.\u00a0 He has a few good friends, but he is lonely and would like to have had a child of his own. As can happen with return journeys, what he learns about his mother and her friends brings him much more than he expects.\u00a0 There is much tender observation in this part of the story.<\/p>\n

As always with Roberts, the reader is treated to marvellously sensuous descriptions.\u00a0 Here, too, are many colourful forms of resistance\u00a0 –\u00a0 to the repressive side of Catholicism, to gender stereotyping, to constraint of all kinds.\u00a0 This resistance may be cheeky, or angry; it is always passionate, playful and imaginative.\u00a0 Roberts\u2019s characteristic celebration of the good things in life is seen through a story of female friendship, as her workaday characters cope with their dreams and disasters.\u00a0 And through the eyes of Cl\u00e9mence, we see the gorgeous welcoming vivacity of Matisse\u2019s art afresh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/p>\n

Denis\u2019s journey from the present to Clem\u00e9nce\u2019s past and back is presented in alternate chapters interleaved with vivid descriptions of photographs of Matisse at work on his cut-outs, taken by one of the story\u2019s subsidiary characters. Like so much else in this novel, these imaginary photographs sound extraordinarily convincing – familiar, even, to anyone who has studied Matisse, seen the archive or visited exhibitions of his work […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8524"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8547,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8524\/revisions\/8547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}