Georgia
by Dawn Tripp (Random House)
With the success of “The Paris Wife” and “Loving Frank,” two novels about the wives of famous men, it was only a matter of time until someone picked up on the love affair between artist Georgia O’Keeffe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz, O’Keeffe’s mentor and husband.
“Georgia” is a sexually charged story of O’Keeffe’s struggle with and against Stieglitz, who was in large part responsible for her fame as an artist but at the same time controlled her life.
O’Keeffe was a schoolteacher when Stieglitz lured her to New York after seeing some of her drawings. He was not only an accomplished photographer but a force in modern art. As he encouraged O’Keeffe’s art, he also manipulated the art market to make sure her work received promotion as well as high prices. Would O’Keeffe have reached the pinnacle she did if not for Stieglitz? Who can say?
O’Keeffe paid a price for her husband’s help. He was emotionally demanding, was lost when she went on painting trips to Maine and New Mexico, and eventually had affairs. He used O’Keeffe as a model for his nude photographs, and she was devastated when they were shown in public.
In fact, one of the most insightful parts of “Georgia” is O’Keeffe’s struggle to distance herself from the photographs and to find acceptance as an artist rather than a woman artist. Early reviewers feminized her work. The reviews treated her differently from the way they wrote about her male counterparts.
Author Dawn Tripp humanizes an artist who is seen in biographies as more icon than woman. Her sensuous novel is as finely rendered as an O’Keeffe painting.
Breaking Wild
by Diane Les Becquets (Berkley)
On a predawn morning in late fall, Amy Raye Latour sets off by herself on an elk hunt. A bow hunter, she hopes to kill the elk, butcher it and return to camp before nightfall. But the hunt goes terribly wrong. The elk is only wounded, and Amy Raye trails him for miles into the wild terrain of northwest Colorado.
Just as Amy Raye finds him, the weather turns bad, and she is caught in a disorienting snowstorm that leaves her lost and injured in a fall.
By the time a search is launched, Amy Raye has been gone two days. But ranger Pru Hathaway is not ready to give up. With her rescue dog, Kona, she eventually finds the site of the kill. But too much time has passed. Amy Raye couldn’t have survived. She is either a suicide or a victim of the weather or cougars. Still Pru won’t give up. As weeks pass, she returns again and again to the mountains in search of clues to Amy’s disappearance.
“Breaking Wild” is a compelling story of the two determined women. Amy Raye is flawed because of a childhood sexual trauma. She loves her husband but can’t be faithful to him. As time passes, she examines the relationship. Pru, too, is haunted by childhood tragedy — the death of a boy she had expected to marry. A brief affair produced a son, but Pru has given up on finding a man to love again.
Author Diane Les Becquets, a former Meeker resident, writes a tightly wound novel set against a background filled with details of hunting and outdoor life. The authenticity of the research adds to this tense story of human endurance and determination.
Improbable Fortunes
by Jeffrey Price (Archer)
Telluride author Jeffrey Price is co-screenwriter of “Who Framed Robert Rabbit,” “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “Shrek III.” So you’ll suspect you’re in for a slapstick comedy in “Improbable Fortunes.”
Price doesn’t disappoint. He sets his story in Vanadium, a once-prosperous uranium town now populated by an oddball assortment of characters. One of them is Buster McCaffrey, an orphan who has had four adoptive families. Three give him up because the father dies mysteriously.
It’s unlikely that Buster, a lovable if not too bright giant of a cowboy, is responsible. All he wants is a piece of land and a girl, the nubile Destiny Stumplehorst. Alas, she is more interested in cocaine and her drug-dealing boss, who runs a real estate company. To accomplish his goals, Buster goes to work for Marvin Mallomar, one of the world’s richest men, who has decided to go native by giving away much of his fortune and living in an old homestead—that quickly morphs into a 40,000-square-foot, 10-bedroom megamansion.
Buster is put in charge of Mallomar’s estate, despite advice from the sheriff and a foul-talking cowpoke, both of whom have had a lifelong interest in helping the boy.
The result is a wacky story of love, mayhem and mass murder — and an improbable ending.
