Luncheon of the Boating Party

With her richly textured novels, Susan Vreeland has offered pioneering portraits of artists? lives. Now, as she did in Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Vreeland once again focuses on a single painting?Auguste Renoir?s instantly recognizable masterpiece, which depicts a gathering of Renoir?s real friends enjoying a summer Sunday on a cafand#233; terrace along the Seine. Narrated by Renoir and seven of the models, the novel illuminates the gusto, hedonism, and art of the era. With a gorgeous palette of vibrant, captivating characters, Vreeland paints their lives, loves, losses, and triumphs so vividly that ?the painting literally comes alive? (The Boston Globe).

—The Philadelphia Inquirer

“If a trip to Paris is a bit outside of your price range, Vreeland’s new novel is the next best thing.”

—Parade

“A masterwork.”

—The San Diego Union-Tribune

“Exquisitely wrought . . . this summer’s most satisfying historical novel.”

—The Seattle Times

“Vreeland takes the big bold brush strokes of Renoir’s personal and artistic oeuvre and displays them with her usual vividness in this eponymous novel. . . . Sensual and provocative.”

—The Baltimore Sun

With her richly textured novels, Susan Vreeland has offered pioneering portraits of artists' lives. As she did in Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Vreeland focuses on a single painting, Auguste Renoir's instantly recognizable masterpiece, which depicts a gathering of Renoir's real friends enjoying a summer Sunday on a caf terrace along the Seine. Narrated by Renoir and seven of the models, the novel illuminates the gusto, hedonism, and art of the era. With a gorgeous palette of vibrant, captivating characters, Vreeland paints their lives, loves, losses, and triumphs so vividly that "the painting literally comes alive" (The Boston Globe).