The Last Nude

by Ellis Avery Narrated by Therese Plummer, Barbara Caruso

Overview

The passionate story of an artist and her most famous muse, set in Paris between the World Wars. A tour-de-force of historical imagination, inspired by real events.

Paris, 1927, a day in July. A destitute young American named Rafaela Fano gets into the car of a dazzling stranger, the Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka. Struggling to halt a downward slide toward prostitution, Rafaela agrees to model for the artist. The two become lovers, and Rafaela inspires Tamara's most accomplished and prized works of art, including Beautiful Rafaela, “one of the most important nudes of the twentieth century” (New York Times).

The relationship between the artist and her muse lasted less than a year, yet in 1980, just before Tamara died, she was working on a copy of Beautiful Rafaela. Author Ellis Avery imagines their affair from Rafaela's point of view, and the final day of Tamara's life from the painter's point of view. A window into Jazz Age Paris as the forces of history close in, The Last Nude is a story of genius and craft, art and money, friendship and desire.

Editorial Reviews

Kathryn Lang

As in her first novel…Avery deftly re-creates a lost period…[The Last Nude is] a compulsively readable novel that brings to life a diva whose biography is as titillating as her paintings.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

In Avery’s second novel (after The Teahouse Fire), poor young Rafaela meets Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka in 1920s Paris. Rafaela is no stranger to the currency of sex (“I had traded sex for a train ticket, for an apartment, for a coat and hat and shoes, and most recently... for money”). Before meeting de Lempicka, however, Rafaela had never gone to bed because she wanted to, and the artist awakens the young woman’s desire. Centered around de Lempicka’s provocative nudes of Rafaela, the novel chronicles the shifting boundaries between artist and muse over the course of a heated affair. The relationship is tested when the prestigious Salon d’Automne jury accepts two of de Lempicka’s Rafaela paintings, The Dream and La Bella Rafaela. De Lempicka receives an offer for the latter work before the exhibit even opens, and Rafaela’s portrait becomes a sensation, leaving her uncertain of what to expect in the wake of success, especially from her lover. Though at times contrived, the strength of Avery’s novel lies in her depiction of a driven and accomplished artist and an impressionable waif who finds that her beauty no longer belongs to her. (Jan.)

From the Publisher

[An] amazing book . . . wholly original and engrossing.”

—The Boston Globe

“The Last Nude breaks important ground for literature, and does so with exuberance, skill, and grace.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

“A compulsively readable novel.”

—The Washington Post

“A taut, elegant novel . . . [Avery’s] prose sings.”

—MORE Magazine

“Seductive and compelling, the novel is painted with as much drama and precision as one of Lempicka’s canvases.”

—The Daily Beast

“A sly, sleekly written stereograph of art, desire, and desperation in Paris in the ’20s, The Last Nude brings Rafaela to electric life, much as Tamara de Lempicka did when she painted her.”

—Alexander Chee, author of Edinburgh 

“The Last Nude is a remarkable novel: at once a seductive evocation of Lost Generation Paris, a faithful literary rendering of Tamara de Lempicka's idiosyncratic and groundbreaking art, and a vibrant, intelligent, affecting story in its own right. It’s also smoking hot.”

—Emily Barton, author of Brookland

“Ellis Avery transports the reader on a fast-paced magic-carpet ride to Paris between the world wars, a time when artists, patrons, and models fused the business of sex and art, with deeply painful results.”

—Aaron Hamburger, author of Faith for Beginners

“The Last Nude carries us through one of the most fascinating and turbulent periods in modern art, and into the minds and bodies of two of art history’s most riveting heroines. With prose and imagery that are both lyrical and unabashedly sensual, Ellis Avery breathes life and depth into famed artist’s muse Rafaela, tracing her rocky but thrilling path from lost girl to Lost Generation icon, and laying bare acts of love, desire and betrayal with all the assuredness of a master artist herself.”

—Jennifer Cody Epstein, author of The Painter from Shanghai

Sound Commentary

Breaks important ground for literature, and does so with exuberance, skill and grace.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

Booklist

Plummer . . . captures [young Rafaela’s] appealing energy. . . . Caruso narrates the artist’s part just as convincingly. . . . This is an excellent production of a fascinating story.”
—AudioFile

More Magazine

What’s not to love about Ellis Avery’s romantic novel.”
—Oprah.com

The Boston Globe

The strength of Avery’s novel lies in her depiction of a driven and accomplished artist and an impressionable waif who finds that her beauty no longer belongs to her.”
—Publishers Weekly

San Francisco Chronicle

Absorbing, affecting, and agitating . . . this work is highly recommended.”
—Library Journal [HC starred review]

Oprah.com

What’s not to love about Ellis Avery’s romantic novel.”
—Oprah.com

Library Journal

In 1927, bold and glamorous Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka encountered 17-year-old Rafaela while in Paris's Bois de Boulogne and took her home, using her as a model for six significant paintings (including Beautiful Rafaela) and briefly becoming her lover. De Lempicka was working on a copy of Beautiful Rafaela when she died in 1980. Inspired by these bare facts, Avery (The Teahouse Fire) has crafted an evocative, heart-cutting work that imagines the relationship between artist and model. Traveling from New York to Italy for an arranged marriage, Rafaela escapes from her chaperone and, "trad[ing] sex for a train ticket," heads for Paris. There she's gloriously free but living on the edge; when de Lempicka finds her, she's gone to borrow money from a street-walking friend. Avery does a lot for us here, creating two stunning characters—the earthy, heartfelt Rafaela and the conniving de Lempicka—then shows us both the heat of their relationship and the very act of creating art. In the bargain, we get Paris itself, particularly demimonde and artistic, boiling over with possibility. VERDICT Absorbing, affecting, and agitating—you'll end up wanting to punch de Lempicka—this work is highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 7/5/11.]—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

JANUARY 2012 - AudioFile

In this account of art deco painter Tamara de Lempicka’s relationship with her model, Rafaela, buildings look like confections and sewing machines sound like cicadas. In fact, nearly every detail thrums with lush, sensual imagery. Rafaela is stumbling her way through Jazz Age Paris when she meets Tamara and becomes her lover and muse. Thérèse Plummer voices young Rafaela with a contemporary inflection and captures her appealing energy. Plummer also balances the young woman’s naïveté with her somewhat desperate edges. Barbara Caruso narrates the artist’s part just as convincingly, immersing herself in the role of the emotional Polish painter. Her accent and direct tone provide an appropriate contrast to Plummer’s performance. This is an excellent production of a fascinating story. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Avery (The Teahouse Fire, 2006, etc.) is right in step with the current publishing trend toward romantic yet literary historical fiction with this imagined romance between the cubist/art deco artist Tamara de Lempicka and the model Rafaela, who appears in six of her paintings. The first, longer section of the novel is told from half-Italian-American Catholic/half-Jewish Rafaela Fano's viewpoint and set among the sexually fluid ex-pats of Paris in 1927. On her way from the Bronx to an arranged marriage in Italy at age 17, Rafaela runs away to Paris, where she quickly becomes part of the demimonde. Rafaela meets 27-year-old Tamara de Lempicka in the Bois de Boulogne (a factual encounter), and Tamara takes her home to pose. Already an established painter, Tamara is an aristocratic émigré from Poland by way of Russia and the mother of a young daughter. She is also going through a difficult divorce and has had affairs with men and women. Soon Tamara and Rafaela are lovers. Rafaela has been paid for sex by numerous men, but for the first time she falls in love. What Tamara feels is less clear because she lives within a self-invented, larger-than-life persona. She is a serious artist and her sexual passion for Rafaela seems real, but so is her passion for money. Soon she embroils Rafaela in a scheme that pits two wealthy art buyers in a competition over who gets the second version of her painting "Beautiful Rafaela," a painting she promises Rafaela she will never sell. The novel's shorter second section shifts to 1980 Mexico, where the aged Tamara spends her last days. Steeped in largely feminine/lesbian sensuality and peopled by famous and cultural figures of pre–World War II Europe, the novel is a dark, sexy romp, although it ends in a disappointing whimper.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170010240
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	01/05/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged

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