DESCRIPTION
“This charming fable is at once a love story that skips through six centuries, & also a love song to the timeless craft of glassmaking. Chevalier probes the fierce rivalries & enduring loyalties of Murano's glass dynasties, capturing the roar of the furnace, the sweat on the skin, & the glittering beauty of Venetian glass.” –Geraldine Brooks, author of Horse
From the bestselling historical novelist, a rich, transporting story that follows a family of glassmakers from the height of Renaissance-era Italy to the present day.
It is 1486 & Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers on Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass—but she has the hands for it, the heart, & a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make glass beads in secret, & her work supports the Rosso family fortunes.
Skipping like a stone through the centuries, in a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola & her family as they live through creative triumph & heartbreaking loss, from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano & its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists. In every era, the Rosso women ensure that their work, & their bonds, endure.
Chevalier is a master of her own craft, & The Glassmaker is as inventive as it is spellbinding: a mesmerizing portrait of a woman, a family, & a city that are as everlasting as their glass.
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Tracy Chevalier is the author of eleven novels, including A Single Thread, Remarkable Creatures, and Girl with a Pearl Earring, an international bestseller that has sold over 5 million copies & been made into a film, a play, & an opera. Born in Washington DC, she moved to the United Kingdom in 1986. She & her husband divide their time between L
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