Talland House: A Novel

(Paperback)

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Description

Royal Academy, London 1919: Lily has put her student days in St. Ives, Cornwall, behind her-a time when her substitute mother, Mrs. Ramsay, seemingly disliked Lily's portrait of her and Louis Grier, her tutor, never seduced her as she hoped he would. In the years since, she's been a suffragette and a nurse in WWI, and now she's a successful artist with a painting displayed at the Royal Academy. Then Louis appears at the exhibition with the news that Mrs. Ramsay has died under suspicious circumstances. Talking to Louis, Lily realizes two things: 1) she must find out more about her beloved Mrs. Ramsay's death (and her sometimes-violent husband, Mr. Ramsay), and 2) She still loves Louis. Set between 1900 and 1919 in picturesque Cornwall and war-blasted London, Talland House takes Lily Briscoe from the pages of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and tells her story outside the confines of Woolf's novel-as a student in 1900, as a young woman becoming a professional artist, her loves and friendships, mourning her dead mother, and solving the mystery of her friend Mrs. Ramsay's sudden death. Talland House is both a story for our present time, exploring the tensions women experience between their public careers and private loves, and a story of a specific moment in our past-a time when women first began to be truly independent.

Reviews

2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist in Historical (Fiction - Post 1900s)
2021 Eric Hoffer First Horizon Awards Finalist
2021 Eric Hoffer Award Grand Prize Short List
2021 Eric Hoffer Book Award Honorable Mention in Historical Fiction

"Maggie Humm has brilliantly filled in the edges beyond Woolf's canvas; she has a deep, awe-inspiring understanding of the role of the visual in Woolf's work, and here she reveals that she also has a novelist's gift to create something new, that has its own imaginative life, from that understanding."
--Lauren Elkin, author of the award-winning Flaneuse

"I've really enjoyed Talland House . . . the novel is written with such a painterly eye I felt as if I too was seeing the world through Lily Briscoe's eyes. It is a wonderfully visual novel and the Cornish scenes are gorgeously evoked."
--Annabel Abbs, author of the award-winning The Joyce Girl and Frieda

"Evocative of Woolf's To the Lighthouse in the way [Humm] represents the tensions between nostalgia and the passing of time. The primary setting of St Ives in Cornwall is beautifully depicted and subtly realised, without resorting to clich or relying on Woolf's vivid descriptions, creating a language of the writer's own. . . . The atmosphere of the novel is dreamy. . . ."
--Historical Writers Association

"It's evocative and engaging--sweeping landscapes simmering next to psychological interior exploration. Picturesque Cornwall and busy London are the backdrop for a young woman growing up, and an older woman reflecting back. We're treated to details about the captivating Lily Briscoe and her relationship with herself, her art, and the women and men in her life. It's a great read, from a clearly very knowledgeable writer."
--Francesca Baker, marketer and founder of And So She Thinks

Author Bio

Maggie Humm is an Emeritus Professor at University of East London in the UK. An international Woolf scholar, she is the author/editor of fourteen books, the last three of which focused on Woolf and the arts. Talland House was shortlisted for the Impress and Fresher Fiction prizes in 2017 (as Who Killed Mrs. Ramsay ) and the Retreat West and Eyelands prizes in 2018. She lives in London and is currently writing Rodins Mistress, a novel about the tumultuous love affair of the artists Gwen John and Rodin. Find her at www.maggiehumm.net.