The gravity of birds

Description

Sisters Natalie and Alice Kessler were close until adolescence wrenched them apart. Natalie is a headstrong, manipulative beauty; Alice is a dreamer who loves books and birds. During a lakeside summer holiday, they sit for a family portrait by struggling young painter Thomas Bayber. By summer's end, three lives are shattered. Decades later, Bayber, now a reclusive, world-renowned artist, unveils a never-before-seen work, Kessler Sisters. Bayber asks Dennis Finch, an art history professor, and Stephen Jameson, an eccentric young art authenticator, to sell the painting for him. That task becomes more complicated when the artist requires that they first locate Natalie and Alice, who seem to have vanished.

Description

How do you find someone who wants to be lost? Sisters Alice and Natalie were once close, but adolescence has wrenched them apart. Alice loves books and birds in equal measure whilst Natalie, the beautiful one, is sexy and manipulative, effortlessly captivating men. On their lakeside family holiday, Alice falls under the thrall of the enigmatic next-door-neighbour, a struggling young painter. Natalie seems strangely unmoved by the charismatic stranger in their midst. She tolerates the family sittings for the portrait Thomas is painting with a barely disguised distaste. But as the family portrait nears completion, the family dynamics shift irrevocably. And by the end of the summer, three lives are shattered. Four decades later, the only thing that remains of that fateful summer is a painting of the sisters. The artist is determined to take the secrets of the girls to the grave, but his close friend decides to use the painting to beat a path to the past before it closes the door on them all for good ...

Subjects

Other Editions

• The gravity of birds2013-01-01
• The gravity of birds2013-01-01
• The Gravity of BirdsCharnwood2014-06-01