‘The Painted Girls,’ by Cathy Marie Buchanan

Edgar Degas wax and fabric statue "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen" took the curiosity of millions of people in the 28 bronze reproductions, but far fewer know the heartbreaking story of the model, Marie van Goethem, and her sisters. In "The Painted Girls", a historically based work of fiction rich in naturalistic details of the late 19th Century Paris, paints Cathy Marie Buchanan girls who spring from the page as vibrantly as the dancer jump on a stage.

Life in the slums of lower Montmartre, the girl dancer at the Paris Opera Ballet aim, a resource for sea urchins, to save himself from life on the street by her legs, balancing en pointe, jump and turn his. Practicing long hours and fighting exhaustion and malnutrition, they were able to earn a meager income, if they stay on the lowest rank petit rat, but they could lead lavish life when they rise to stardom. So the dream of the van was Goethem sisters.

When the novel opens, 17-year-old Antoinette has been dismissed by the ballet school for willful and belligerence. Marie, unattractive and extremely thin, is working harder achieved short-lived success and posing for Degas statuette at age 14. But Charlotte, 7, egocentric, pretty, bright sashes craving is the natural dancer.Marie Antoinette with alternate view, the novel contrasts the joy of dance with sharp images of brothels, prisons, and the guillotine. Despite her grace and power (Marie 16 stunning fouettes en leads tournant similar spins, thus gaining a place on the stage), the two eldest sisters are bound misfortune. By their poor decisions, lying, stealing and prostitution one kind or another, as one reads on, compelled by the love for these girls, who Buchanan describes so compassionate.It's a story in the vein of the 19th Century naturalism, novel as deterministic as Zola. As Buchanan reports, the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso, confirmed by French anthropologists theorize that certain cranial characteristics appear occur in prehistoric man, as often among modern criminals that they are scientific predictors of corruption: a low, sloping forehead, wide cheekbones, a forward movement of the lower surface. Poor Mary, the only sister who reads discovered this theory in a newspaper article, and since her face shows these qualities, she is haunted by the consequences.Lombroso theories have been credited by the Impressionist painter Edgar Degas, prostitutes, cabaret entertainer, dancer and criminals displayed with these telltale characteristics. His two thirds life-size statue of Mary is doing nothing to hide these properties, while their ambiguous attitude - chin raised impertinent, crooked teeth pushing out her lips, vulgar snub nose, arms boldly behind her back, pushing your hips forward - suggests a defiant attitude, if not brazen impudence. Displaying "Little Dancer" next "Criminal physiognomy" in the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition Degas could be the unsavory private life of the dancers he painted in their frothy skirts worked so hard, been alluded to become nymphs, fairies and swans. Thus, this novel is the question: a descent into misery inevitable?Buchanan shows Marie drawn reluctantly into a glittering salon where ogle wealthy subscribers Opera and interact with the actors. Lavishing money and gifts on destitute girls, the men are patrons of individual dancers. The purity of a dancer for life is clouded by beauty prurient expectations.Integration of three actual murderer with the three girls stories is another brilliant act of imagination that drives the novel, which. An engaging story of the search for love in the face of ugliness and brutality Wheeling got out of control, pulled the two older girls from her pretty pirouettes descent to the misery of their mutual affection except for one time. Nevertheless, Buchanan makes us feel that they are good at heart. "The Painted Girls" is a compelling story of fate hinged ambition and the final triumph of Sister Love.

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