BEYOND IMAGE

by Lanny May Freedman

Alice has always been an outsider. A Londoner born and bred, yet without a trace of English blood, she is the daughter of a Czech-born Jewish emigre and a French mother. Alice is steeped in music and art – her father is a professional musician, her mother a dancer, she herself an artist – yet she ends up married to a stolid, prosaic lawyer, with whom she has little in common. Since her marriage, she has lived in a small country town amongst people whose pettiness appals her. She finds herself forced to retreat into her own private world that she can share with no-one until the day she meets Jack, a young jazz musician, ten years her junior. They instantly recognise one another as kindred spirits. Alice’s career takes off when her paintings attract the interest and support of a wealthy Swedish collector. She joins a fashionable set of London artists, but once again finds herself out on a limb. The art world appears to consist of nothing but pretentious poseurs and egotists, for whom image, celebrity and money are all that count. For Alice the making of art is a pathway to a rare place, a way to escape from the commonplace world of the here and now. Her emergence from domestic hibernation leads her finally to discover what lies beyond the image.

350 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 8, 2013