A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline, 2017, 304 pages

A Piece of the World is a fictional account of the life of Christina Olsen’s life. Characters, places and events really happened but the inner life, drama and complexities were created from the author’s imagination.

The story begins on a July afternoon in 1939. Christina is working on a quilt patch when Betsy, the neighbor girl, drops by and introduces her boyfriend, Andrew Wyeth. Andrew is immediately taken with Christina, and the layers of history in the old house. A relationships develops and the house and Christina become his muse for painting. This ‘adoption’ is beneficial to all of them, giving Christina a much needed mental stimulation from her ordinary and solitary life, and supplying Wyeth with inspiration for his paintings.

The chapters go back and forth between Christina’s childhood and the present. She was given some difficult circumstances – a crippling disease that was never diagnosed and their New England roots that kept them bound to the crumbling house and useless farm. Some of her difficulties were brought on by her stubborn refusal to be helped. She also made some choices that limited her freedom and her chances at happiness. Ultimately, she kept her brother in the same prison she was in.

Yet in the end, Christina’s heart softens and she accepts being seen and appreciated by the artist.

Christina’s World is a painting by Andrew Wyeth featuring a dry grassy hill, an old house with black windows, and a girl in a pink dress. The girl is lying on the grass, gazing at the house, her spindly arms supporting her upper body at an odd angle. She is looking up the hill at a crumbling old house, and appears to be yearning toward it, yet hesitant. What is she thinking?

“You told me once you see yourself as a girl,” Andy says….

I think of all the ways I’ve been perceived by others over the years: as a burden, a dutiful daughter, a girlfriend, a spiteful wretch, an invalid…

This is my letter to the World that never wrote to Me.

“You showed what no one else could see,” I tell him.

It was hard to me to discern what actually happened and what was the author’s imagination in this book. The copyright page says A Piece of the World is a work of fiction, yet the author explains in the note at the end how she went to great detail to get the facts correct. There really was a woman named Christina Olsen, who lived in Cushing, Maine and a painter named Andrew Wyeth who’s most famous painting is called Christina’s World. The inner life, drama and complexity were created from the author’s imagination. It certainly made me curious enough to do a little of my own research into Christina’s life and the painting.

The author did a superb job of taking an ordinary life and making it matter. I enjoyed so many exquisite word pictures in her prose. I am looking forward to reading more by Christina Baker Kline.

This book was a warning to me in some ways: Don’t be so proud and stubborn. You are actually less of a burden if you let people help you. Take responsibility for your attitude. Be happy for others’ success. Take the opportunities life give you. Go to Boston.

And saying I’m sorry dissolves the bitterness of years. Some things take a lifetime to understand what they mean.

I nearly gave up on this book. I liked Christina less and less as the story progressed. Yet the ending had a strange, uplifting light to it, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

I hope you read this book. If you do, be sure to add your thoughts in the comments.

–Liz