Review: Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland
Clara and Mr. Tiffany
by Susan Vreeland
Until her marriage, Clara Driscoll worked at Tiffany Glass Studios. Now that her husband has died and left her a widow, Clara returns to Tiffany and asks for her old job back. Louis Tiffany happily rehires her, and Clara is once again swept up into the colorful world of leaded glass. She becomes the head of the womens' division, training young immigrant women to draw cartoons and
select glass for Tiffany's display at the Chicago World's Fair. Forced out of her old home, she moves into a rather bohemian boardinghouse populated with a lively assortment of actors, artists and writers. As the years pass, Clara becomes indispensable to the studio, eventually designing the iconic lampshades so well known today. But her longing to marry again conflicts with her desire to continue working in the studio, for Tiffany's has a long-standing policy of not employing married women. Will she sacrifice her art or her lover - and which will make her happiest?
I really wanted to like this book. Clara Driscoll was a real-life designer for Tiffany Studios who received little recognition for her art during her lifetime. Huzzah for a story that brings attention to a forgotten female artist from the turn of the 20th century!
Overall I did enjoy Clara and Mr. Tiffany, but there were a couple of niggling things that kept me from being enraptured by it. The biggest thing to stand out was that much of the dialogue was too overblown and flowery to sound like natural conversation. It’s peppered with hyperbole and clichés, which makes me imagine the characters running around in hysterics, so enraptured by Great Art and the Pursuit of Beauty that they hyperventilate with every word.
Clara Driscoll, the main character, spends a lot of time saying pretty or ‘deep’ things about glassmaking and Tiffany’s…so much that she doesn’t sound like someone living in her time period, because her very modern views are clearly affected by hindsight. Her personality comes off as harsh and unpleasant, especially when she’s complaining about the lack of recognition she’s receiving for her art. Her nagging makes her a rather unsympathetic character, even when horrible things happen to her.
There’s also a lot of information dumping about the different techniques for working with glass, as used by Tiffany Studios. Now, I found this quite interesting, as I’ve recently started working with glass myself, but it really slowed the plot down to a crawl.
The one thing I thought that Vreeland really nailed was creating the atmosphere of NYC at the turn of the century. From the crowded, dirty immigrant corridors to the palatial homes of New York’s elite, I could easily conjure up the world of the Tiffany girls. I just wish that the dialogue and characters had been as convincing!
3 out of 5 stars
To read more about Clara and Mr. Tiffany, buy it from an independent bookstore or add it to your wishlist click here.
by Susan Vreeland
Until her marriage, Clara Driscoll worked at Tiffany Glass Studios. Now that her husband has died and left her a widow, Clara returns to Tiffany and asks for her old job back. Louis Tiffany happily rehires her, and Clara is once again swept up into the colorful world of leaded glass. She becomes the head of the womens' division, training young immigrant women to draw cartoons and
select glass for Tiffany's display at the Chicago World's Fair. Forced out of her old home, she moves into a rather bohemian boardinghouse populated with a lively assortment of actors, artists and writers. As the years pass, Clara becomes indispensable to the studio, eventually designing the iconic lampshades so well known today. But her longing to marry again conflicts with her desire to continue working in the studio, for Tiffany's has a long-standing policy of not employing married women. Will she sacrifice her art or her lover - and which will make her happiest?
I really wanted to like this book. Clara Driscoll was a real-life designer for Tiffany Studios who received little recognition for her art during her lifetime. Huzzah for a story that brings attention to a forgotten female artist from the turn of the 20th century!
Overall I did enjoy Clara and Mr. Tiffany, but there were a couple of niggling things that kept me from being enraptured by it. The biggest thing to stand out was that much of the dialogue was too overblown and flowery to sound like natural conversation. It’s peppered with hyperbole and clichés, which makes me imagine the characters running around in hysterics, so enraptured by Great Art and the Pursuit of Beauty that they hyperventilate with every word.
Clara Driscoll, the main character, spends a lot of time saying pretty or ‘deep’ things about glassmaking and Tiffany’s…so much that she doesn’t sound like someone living in her time period, because her very modern views are clearly affected by hindsight. Her personality comes off as harsh and unpleasant, especially when she’s complaining about the lack of recognition she’s receiving for her art. Her nagging makes her a rather unsympathetic character, even when horrible things happen to her.
There’s also a lot of information dumping about the different techniques for working with glass, as used by Tiffany Studios. Now, I found this quite interesting, as I’ve recently started working with glass myself, but it really slowed the plot down to a crawl.
The one thing I thought that Vreeland really nailed was creating the atmosphere of NYC at the turn of the century. From the crowded, dirty immigrant corridors to the palatial homes of New York’s elite, I could easily conjure up the world of the Tiffany girls. I just wish that the dialogue and characters had been as convincing!
3 out of 5 stars
To read more about Clara and Mr. Tiffany, buy it from an independent bookstore or add it to your wishlist click here.