Jan
13
13
The way Tamara spoke to me, without hesitation, without doubting herself, made me think of that tailor at Chanel, as uncowed by Guillaume’s age, bulk and money as she was by the shining, buttery fabric in her hands.
—Ellis Avery, from The Last Nude
About
Poets think in lines, prose writers in sentences; the best of both work from sound to sense, with an ear for the music in their compositions. S for Sentence celebrates lyricism in prose, the play and craft at work in the artful sentence. We post a sentence a month along with comments by a guest writer on the craft that shapes it, on what makes it great. In one or two sentences.—Pearl Abraham, Editor
This sentence gives voice to the beautiful, silent Rafaela, the model in the famous paintings of Tamara de Lempicka, whose career as an artist was inspired by Rafaela's beauty. Avery’s rendering of Rafaela’s inner consciousness reads like an Art Deco painting from 1920s Paris. The vision of the lower class Rafaela getting fitted for a Chanel dress, paid for by her wealthy, sophisticated lover Guillaume, juxtaposed beside this new experience, modeling for a mysterious, well-to-do aristocrat painter, evokes Parisian life complete with the fairy dust of that glamorous Art Deco moment.
—Michael Bratton is working on a novel about his experiences as a wild land firefighter in Southern California.
—Michael Bratton is working on a novel about his experiences as a wild land firefighter in Southern California.