The Fountain of St. James Court; or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman: A Novel - Softcover

New York Times bestselling author Sena Jeter Naslund explores the lives of successful creative women—their devotion to work and family; their fears; their loves—in an enthralling novel that resonates across time and place

It's midnight on St. James Court, in which stands a fountain sculpture of Venus rising from the sea. Kathryn Callaghan has just finished a draft of her novel about renowned painter Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, a survivor of the French Revolution. Kathryn remains haunted by Élisabeth's experiences—revealed here in a novel-within-a-novel, interleaved with the chronicle of one day in Kathryn's life. Despite being separated by time, place, and culture, Kathryn and Élisabeth possess similar gifts and burdens. And before another midnight arrives, Kathryn will confront personal danger as frightening as that which Élisabeth faced during the Reign of Terror. Each woman will be called upon and tested; each will, like Venus, rise triumphantly above the expectations of her world.

Sena Jeter Naslund is a cofounder and program director of the Spalding University (Louisville) brief-residency MFA in Writing, where she edits The Louisville Review and Fleur-de-Lis Press. A winner of the Harper Lee Award and the Southeastern Library Association Fiction award, she is the author of eight previous works of fiction, including Ahab's Wife, a finalist for the Orange Prize. She recently retired from her position as Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Louisville.