That may sound unbelievably pretentious, but I didn't mean it as 'I can do Vermeer in words.' I wanted to write it in a way that Vermeer would have painted: very simple lines, simple compositions, not a lot of clutter, and not a lot of superfluous characters.Ĭhevalier achieved her objective expertly, helped by the fact that she employed the famous Girl as narrator of the story. I decided early on that I wanted to be a simple story, simply told, and to imitate with words what Vermeer was doing with paint. In an interview with her college's alumni magazine, she commented: It was a bold move on Chevalier's part to build a story around the somewhat mysterious 17th-century Dutch painter and his unassuming but luminous subject but the author's purist approach helped set the tone. Tracy Chevalier first gained attention by imagining the answer to one of art history's small but intriguing questions: Who is the subject of Johannes Vermeer's painting 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'? She lives in London with her husband and son and hopes to see all of Vermeer's thirty-five known paintings in her lifetime (thus far, she's seen twenty-eight of them). Smith for its Fresh Talent promotion in 1997. The Virgin Blue (her first novel), was chosen by W.

After working as a literary editor for several years, Chevalier chose to pursue her own writing career and in 1994, she graduated with a degree in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. Initially intending to attend one semester abroad, she studied for a semester and never returned. Raised in Washington D.C., Tracy Chevalier moved to England in 1984 after graduating from Oberlin College in Ohio.

Education-B.A., Oberlin College (USA) M.A., University of.

Eventually she must decide if she too can act on what she believes in, whatever the personal costs.Ī powerful journey brimming with color and drama, The Last Runaway is Tracy Chevalier’s vivid engagement with an iconic part of American history. However, drawn into the clandestine activities of the Underground Railroad, a network helping runaway slaves escape to freedom, Honor befriends two surprising women who embody the remarkable power of defiance. In her new home Honor discovers that principles count for little, even within a religious community meant to be committed to human equality. Nineteenth-century America is practical, precarious, and unsentimental, and scarred by the continuing injustice of slavery. Sick from the moment she leaves England, and fleeing personal disappointment, she is forced by family tragedy to rely on strangers in a harsh, unfamiliar landscape.

In New York Times bestselling author Tracy Chevalier’s newest historical saga, she introduces Honor Bright, a modest English Quaker who moves to Ohio in 1850, only to find herself alienated and alone in a strange land.

The last runaway book