The Lioness of Boston: A Novel by Emily Franklin. Godine, 2023.The fascinating life of Isabella Stewart Gardner is presented from the time of her marriage. As a new bride, she is unique and outspoken. She is basically shut out from society in the rigid Boston upper class. She makes friends with the local gardener and other workers who help her learn about plants, architecture, and art. "Mrs. Jack" loses several family members and has setbacks that would stun the best of us. But, she perseveres and learns to respect her own ideas and opinions. The novel is divided into four basic parts: early marriage, life as a wife, searching for identity and travelling the world, and the woman as important in the city and the world itself.
The details of 1861-1924 Boston and the art world in general provide background for how ISG bought, arranged, and loved the items she curated. In fact, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is the only museum in the world where a person (and a woman at that!) collected and purchased, arranged and showed, and then gave it all to the public.
Emily Franklin grew up going there and it shows as she writes about individual paintings. Her language flows and provides excellent commentary and the letters in the narrative show the depth of her research into the life and business dealings of Mrs. Gardner. Author's notes tell which situations have been manipulated to make a better flow, but nothing is major.
Interesting details include that nothing can be changed from ISG's original arrangements. For example, after the 1990 thefts of several masterpieces, the empty frames are hauntingly still on the walls. Anyone named Isabella even gets free admission to the museum!
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