Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different
Paint Your Wife
by Jones, Lloyd
- Used
- Paperback
- Condition
- Good +
- ISBN 10
- 1925095371
- ISBN 13
- 9781925095371
- Seller
-
Bellingham, Massachusetts, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Text Publishing Company, 2016-03-15. Trade Paperback. Good +. Trade Paperback. Good +. Ex-library with usual markings.FREE Media Mail Shipping on all U.S. orders over $ 25.00
Reviews
On Nov 20 2014, CloggieDownunder said:
“When you are drawing you are actually learning how to see. You do this through looking. Looking is untarnished glass. No green bits of judgement hanging from the lens. In order to draw you must to learn to see how things are – not how you wish they were, or once were”
Paint Your Wife is the 10th fiction book by New Zealand author, Lloyd Jones. It starts with the mayor of New Egypt, Harry Bryant returning from a visit to his son in London. It is the late 1990s, and Harry’s town, on the North Island of New Zealand, has fallen on hard times. The paint factory has closed up; ideas for tourist attractions fail to gain funding; long-time locals are beginning to abandon the town for more prosperous places. In a last ditch attempt to attract attention, Harry gets Alma Martin to reproduce his old portraits of the town wives in a public space: it generates some outside interest, but also acts as a sort of catalyst for the locals, as does the arrival at Harry’s place of business (Pre-Loved Furnishings and Curios),of a young couple with twins, looking for accommodation.
Alma Martin lives in the old Fire Warden’s cottage on the hill near Harry’s mother’s farm. He has tried his rather talented hand at quite a few things: colour technique at NE Paints; teaching; wartime rat catching; and, in lieu of payment for said rodent extermination, sketching and painting the wives of the town.
Jones gives the reader a cast of charming and often quirky characters; the vignettes that fill in their backstories are captivating; there is plenty of humour and a fair share of wisdom; the feel of the town is well-rendered; the descriptive prose is a joy to read,
Alma’s advice on drawing is also superbly expressive: “Light and shadow, he liked to say, are in constant negotiation as to which parts of the world the other can have” and “…seeing is not the same as looking. And in learning how to draw what you really learn is how to see. Once you learn how to see, good or bad or better doesn’t come into it” are just two illustrations of this.
This offering by Jones is a delightful read, moving and uplifting, and loaded with gorgeous prose. This book was originally published in 2004, two years before the prize-winning Mister Pip, but this new edition by Text Publishing has wonderfully evocative cover art by W.H.Chong. Highly recommended.
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Details
- Seller
- Cozy Book Cellar (US)
- Seller's Inventory #
- 478059
- Title
- Paint Your Wife
- Author
- Jones, Lloyd
- Format/Binding
- Trade Paperback
- Book Condition
- Used - Good +
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 1925095371
- ISBN 13
- 9781925095371
- Publisher
- Text Publishing Company
- Place of Publication
- Melbourne, Vic, Australia
- Date Published
- 2016-03-15
Terms of Sale
Cozy Book Cellar
30 Day return for full credit or refund on any book. Orders placed before 5:00pm eastern time U.S. are shipped the next business day. $ 30.00 fee on any returned check. Free MEDIA mail shipping on all orders in the U.S. over $ 25.00!! - Note - the Biblio system is not able to change your shipping charge to zero at the time you place the order. We will refund all of the shipping charges when we accept the order.
About the Seller
Cozy Book Cellar
Biblio member since 2003
Bellingham, Massachusetts
About Cozy Book Cellar
We specialize in mysteries, especially Cozy, Traditional British, and Female Sleuth Mysteries. We also stock used books in just about every category.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Trade Paperback
- Used to indicate any paperback book that is larger than a mass-market paperback and is often more similar in size to a hardcover...