AUTHOR PROFILE 1

CHRISTINA'S

WORLDFollowing on from her two-million-selling historical novelOrphan Train, CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE has delved intothe backstory of a famous painting by Andrew Wyethto write her new novel, A Piece of the World. ANGUSDALTON talks with the author.

A PIECE OFTHE WORLD

C H R I S T I N A B A K E R K L I N E

\Tisitors to New York's Museum

of Modern Art often findthemselves bewitched by AndrewWyeth s Christina's World.The 1948portrait shows a young woman in apink dress draped across a corner ofa dry field. Her face is turned awayfrom the viewer and she looks to agrey farmhouse jutting up from thehorizon. Her legs are cast uselesslybehind her, and her fingers claw atthe grass. The woman in the painting was basedon Christina Olson, the real-life neighbour ofAmerican artist Andrew Wyeth. Christina BakerKline, who lives in New Jersey, is as fascinatedby the people who flock around this painting asshe is by the woman in the frame.

'The painting, in real life, is incrediblycompelling,' says the English-born writer. 'It'sfascinating to watch people experience it forthe first time — they stand very close to it,gazing at that girl in the grass, examining thetiny brushstrokes. There is a mystery, a question,at its heart: why is she stranded at the bottomof the field? Is she fearful? Yearning? What doesshe desire?'

These questions formed the basis for Kline'snew novel, A Piece of the World, whichis narrated by a fictionalised version of thereal-life woman who inspired Andrew Wyethto paint Christina's World.The author's previousnovel, Orphan Train, spent five weeks at the topof Tlie New York Times bestseller list. But Klinesays that this new novel as her most personalproject to date.

'My grandmother and motherwere also named Christina, and mygrandmother, in South Carolina,grew up in circumstances not unlikeChristina Olson's in Maine: they wereboth raised in the early 20th centuryin remote clapboard farmhouses,without heat or electricity or runningwater. Like Christina Olson, mygrandmother as a child was afflictedwith physical problems that limited

her mobility. I've always been intrigued by thesubject's seemingly paradoxical combination ofstrength and helplessness.'

Olson was posthumously diagnosed withCharcot-Marie-Tooth disease, an inheriteddegenerative muscular condition that severelyrestricted her movement. She was bound herto her home, but Olson had formidable resolveand a precocious wit; by the time she was 12,her schoolmaster asked her father if she mightstay with the school and eventually take it over.Christina's father refused the offer, saying shewas needed at their property.

'Life was hard on the farm,' says Kline. 'Butshe was fiercely proud and would not use awheelchair. Nevertheless, she ran the household.In later years she took to dragging herselfaround — as we can see in Wyeth's portrait.'

Much of the novel centres on therelationship Andrew Wyeth — who was anationally renowned artist by the age of22 — and Olson, who would become his muse.Artistic brilliance ran in the family; Andrewsfather, N C Wyeth, illustrated early editions of

Page 1 of 2

March, 2017Good Reading, National

Author: Christina Baker • Section: General News • Article type : News ItemAudience : 8,000 • Page: 14 • Printed Size: 1173.00cm² • Market: NationalCountry: Australia • Words: 993 • Item ID: 732698166

Licensed by Copyright Agency. You may only copy or communicate this work with a licence.

Treasure Island and helped to catapult the storyto classic status.

'On the surface, Andrew Wyeth was asdifferent from Christina Olson as anyone couldbe,' Christina admits. 'But they shared surprisingsimilarities that bonded them. Like Christina,Andrew was sickly as a child and walked witha limp. He was ornery and liked to be alone.He valued hard work and simple living. Heappreciated Christina's quiet strength, hersmarts and her contrarian nature.'

As much as this book centres on thesehistorical figures, it also focuses on the housein which they live. Kline, in the prologue toA Piece of the World, writes,'... the skeletonof a house can carry in its bones the marrowof all that came before.' The feeling of a houseoozing history through its walls is somethingChristina has experienced first hand.

'I've lived in some very old houses. WhenI was born, my parents lived in a 13th-centurystone house called Apple Trees in a small villagein England, Swaffham Bulbeck. Eventually wemoved to Tennessee, into an abandoned brickhouse called The Wayside that we were toldcame with a resident ghost, Rums. I've alwaysbeen fascinated with how houses contain layersof stories. The epigraph of my first novel isfrom Aeschylus: "The house itself, could it takevoice, might speak aloud and plain.'"

When Kline is asked about how she createddrama from the seemingly mundane and

housebound life of a disabled woman in the1940s, she quotes Thomas Hardy:'The businessof the poet and the novelist is to show thesorriness underlying the grandest things and thegrandeur underlying the sorriest things.' Havinggrown up in Maine and having developed adeep respect for the real-life Christina Olsonthrough research, Kline was committed to'getting into the head of that girl in the grass'.The result is a forceful, atmospheric novel thatcreaks with the depth and character. The bookbecomes especially compelling when some ofthe stories lurking under the floorboards beginto emerge.

'The real-life Christina was descended fromthe chief magistrate of the Salem witch trials,'says Kline.'Her ancestors, trying to escape thetaint of association, fled Salem for the coast ofMaine in the middle of winter. And Christinaherself was rumoured, among some of thetownspeople, to be a witch herself. Wyethvariously described her as "a witch" and "thequeen of Maine". I think she enjoyed, andflirted with, the association.'

People walk in and out of the house inA Piece of the World without forewarning;Christina Olson inherited her grandmother'stendency to leave the doors open, should anypassing witch need refuge. Q

A Piece of the World by Christina BakerKline is published by HarperCollins, rrp $29.99.

Page 2 of 2

March, 2017Good Reading, National

Author: Christina Baker • Section: General News • Article type : News ItemAudience : 8,000 • Page: 14 • Printed Size: 1173.00cm² • Market: NationalCountry: Australia • Words: 993 • Item ID: 732698166

Licensed by Copyright Agency. You may only copy or communicate this work with a licence.