Hard White

by Melanie Dugan

In this vividly-rendered novel, Melanie Dugan reimagines the live of Alice Neel, a groundbreaking American painter who revolutionized the art of the portrait in the twentieth century. Born in 1900 into a straitlaced middle-class family, Neel charted her own unconventional path. Her lifetime spanned World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic, women winning the right to vote, the Great Depression, World War II, the McCarthy Era, the Civil Rights Era, and second-wave feminism. Neel worked for decades in obscurity, wrestling with depression, poverty, and misogyny, loving the wrong men, fighting to live life on her own terms, and above all, to paint.

280 pages, Paperback

Published September 25, 2024

About the author

I was born in the U.S. and now live with my family in Canada. I remember clearly the moment I understood reading, and have never looked back.

Reviews

[Margi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me into a world I know so little about, and looked at it through the eyes of an unapologetic, courageous and fierce artist. I feel a bit like I’ve been through a storm. Fascinating.

[Luciana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a well written book!

I so enjoyed this story about Alice Neel, someone I knew nothing of. An artist whose life spanned over an era where women were just coming into being & she herself, was such a different individual for a person being raised in these times. She fought depression, she fought being different, she fought poverty, she fought being conventional all the while finding true solace in painting.

A powerful read!