Off Island, Lara Tupper
Off Island, Lara Tupper
8 Rating(s)
List: $18.99 | Sale: $13.29
Club: $9.49

Off Island
A Novel

Author: Lara Tupper

Narrator: Linda Jones

Unabridged: 7 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/22/2020

Synopsis

“A luminous novel.”—Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Orphan Train, The Exiles, and A Piece of the World“Pure color!” wrote Paul Gauguin to his wife, Mette, from the South Seas. “Everything must be sacrificed to it.”In Off Island, novelist Lara Tupper imagines Gauguin—chasing new light, new color—ran away to a new island, a rugged outpost off the coast of Maine. There, Gauguin leaves behind some paintings and letters, and maybe a child.A hundred years later, another Maine painter, Pete, finds himself torn between his muses: the sturdy, reliable Molly, and the unhappy, peripatetic Karla—who promises to take him to other, newer islands.Off Island captures the lure of the unknown and the pull of the familiar, and questions what it means to be loyal to one’s art, one’s family, and one’s home.

About Lara Tupper

Lara Tupper is the author of Off Island, a novel inspired by Paul Gauguin's strange marriage; Amphibians, a linked short story collection; and A Thousand and One Nights, an autobiographical novel about singers at sea. Her prose was runner-up for the 2019 Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music in Literature and has appeared in Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak, the Believer, Nowhere Magazine, The Ghost Story, Dogwood Journal, Epiphany, Zone 3, and other literary magazines. A graduate of the MFA program for writers at Warren Wilson College, she taught at Rutgers University for many years and now presents writing workshops and retreats in Massachusetts. She is also a jazz vocalist.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Bookworm on May 02, 2021

I think readers looking for a slice of historical fiction about the painter Gauguin AND who can understand the plot of the story will enjoy this book. Personally, it was a challenge following the narrative as the writing style was quite choppy and abstract. I would understand bits but then be hopele......more

Goodreads review by Robert on September 18, 2020

Off Island is a fascinating read that deftly plays with time and genre. Following the story of a single Maine family (and those in their immediate orbit) through the generations, we see the way that each action and decision effect those that come after, like links in a chain. And with each new chara......more

Goodreads review by Gilion on July 25, 2020

In Off Island, Lara Tupper creates an imagined history of artist Paul Gauguin, famed for his vibrant paintings from the South Seas, visiting an island off the coast of Maine. A hundred years later, a contemporary painter finds the paintings and letters Gauguin left behind and learns that maybe Gaugu......more

Goodreads review by Laura on February 25, 2020

This lovely novel imagines that Paul Gauguin went to an island off the coast of Maine at the end of his life rather than to the South Seas. Mixing fact and fiction and past and present, the novel takes us inside Gauguin’s life and the reverberations of a summer in Maine. I really enjoyed the excuse......more

Goodreads review by Jan on March 05, 2022

Off Island by Lara Tupper is a very good listen. I loved the author's brilliant imagery and how art was woven in the story. The details were fantastic and I could see the colors in my mind. The ability to mesh history with fiction was well done in this book. Linda Jones performed the book very well.......more

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List