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9781950691784

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Based on true events, Joie Davidow's AN UNOFFICIAL MARRIAGE is an account of a love triangle among three passionate artists at the center of cultural life in mid-19th century Europe. Davidow scavenged journals, letters, and historical documents as well as her own experience as an opera singer to portray the young, celebrated prima donna, Pauline Garcia, her much older, adoring husband, Louis Viardot and the fervent Russian aristocrat and writer Ivan Turgenev who will not leave her side. Will Pauline's ambivalent heart break Ivan's? Will Louis defend his honor as a husband and protector? Will Ivan give up the woman he so desperately loves? Davidow keeps us in suspense as the three circle each other, sexual tension and emotion high, burdened by duty and morality as a chorus of famous voices advise and comment: George Sand, Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt and a veritable canon of distinguished artists. These lives are operatic, but Davidow's restraint makes the players real and sympathetic. She places us in their midst and allows us to watch them sing, hunt, play, and love, until we're not just an audience, we're in their lives. Brava! -- Esmeralda Santiago, bestselling author of Conquistadora and When I Was Puerto Rican

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Joie Davidow is the author of a memoir, Marked for Life (Harmony) and co-editor with Esmeralda Santiago of two anthologies, Las Mamis and Las Christmas (both Vintage). She was co-founder of L.A. Weekly and founder of L.A. Style and Si magazines. She lives in Rome where she leads creative writing workshops.

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