Books By Lynn Bushell

by Lynn Bushell
|
4 books
I'm often asked what it's like to be an artist writing about artists, although in my historical novels I’ve ended up writing more about the women who inspired the art. In ‘The Lovers and the Dustman, ’ it was Patricia, who history claimed had seduced the artist Stanley Spencer, wrecked his marriage, stolen his assets, flaunted her gay lover in front of him, and then had the nerve when he was knighted, to assume the title 'Lady Spencer.' In Bonnard’s case, it was Renėe Montachaty, the eighteen-year-old model who became his muse, his lover, and finally his victim, whose story fascinated me.
My early books were lifted from experience and woven into fiction. It is very satisfying when your life seems random, to feel you have some control over your destiny. I found it more rewarding, afterwards, to look at other peoples’ lives when they were struggling. You learn a lot from failure – your own and other peoples’. Success is wonderful, but it doesn’t teach you anything.
Read more... Read less...

Schopenhauer's Porcupines

Lynn Bushell, 2013
It is twenty years since Wanda’s husband threw himself off the top floor landing of their house in Primrose Hill. Hers is a story of abandonment. In 1939, she lost her mother at the railway station as the family fought its way onto the last train out of Warsaw. She has spent her life determined never to let go of anything again. Her husband’s presence has been resurrected in a shrine out on the landing, with his shoes left in the same spot where he took them off that night. The family reunions that mark the anniversary of his death have turned into a battlefield, on which those still imprisoned in her claustrophobic grip try vainly to escape. But this, the twentieth reunion, is destined to be different. Wanda is about to find out why her husband left her so dramatically, the shocking secret that her sister, Mitzi, has held onto all these years, and the unwitting role played in the tragedy by Wanda’s elder son, the brilliant, wayward Schopenhauer scholar, Gregor Silver.

Remember Me

Lynn Bushell, 2009
When her former lover, now a reputable man of letters, publishes his memoirs, Frances Winterton looks vainly for some reference to the time they spent together. Finding none and stung by his ingratitude, she sets out to reclaim the missing years. In the process, she discovers something that casts doubt not merely on the years in question but those on either side.

Painted Ladies

Lynn Bushell, 2019
For twenty-five years, the legendary Marthe has been Pierre Bonnard’s companion and muse. His new model, Renėe, lovely and captivating, thinks it’s time her rival stepped aside. But Marthe won’t give up her place in history without a fight.

The Lovers and the Dustman

Lynn Bushell, 2022
) The two women Stanley Spencer loved most were his wife and fellow artist Hilda Carline and his muse, gay vamp Patricia Preece. The problem was, he wanted both of them together. As an artist, wasn’t he entitled to have two wives if his work required it? The result was scandal, madness, and some great art.