Promo: The Dream Collector: Sabrine & Vincent van Gogh by R.w. Meek
Today, I'm delighted to welcome back author R.w. Meek, with an enticing excerpt from the second book in his fascinating The Dream Collector series – Sabrine & Vincent van Gogh. Have a look! It's well worth it.
The Dream Collector: Sabrine & Vincent van Gogh is currently on blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club. Check out all the other fabulous excerpts HERE!
LA SEGATGORI was near certain that I would find Gauguin at Chaplet's stoneware foundry. “He's there most nights baking and hatching his clay monsters,” she said.
The carriage cab took me across the Alexandre Bridge into the Right Bank, a dream-like ride, as the fallen snow muffled the horses’ cantering and the streets were mostly deserted. Left off at rue Blomet, I found the side alley where the foundry was located.
Stooping, I wiped away the scrim of snow from the basement window. There he was in a corner of the cavernous foundry, absorbed at the potter's wheel, throwing clay. I watched him work. When Gauguin focused, mind and heart, on his art, there was a truthfulness which emanated from him. The truthfulness which made me weak for him.
The pleasure in spying was interrupted when a baton tapped my shoulder. I looked up to face a frowning policeman.
“What would Mademoiselle be doing, peeping in a window this time of night?”
Somewhat awkwardly, I rose to my feet. “I was just curious to see what they do in a stoneware factory.”
“Not one of those cat burglars, are you?”
I wasn't sure if the policeman was truly suspicious or making sport of me. “Highly unlikely,” I replied.
“You could be an accomplice, a look-out.”
“Then I've failed at my job.”
“Your ami might be down there now, tying people up, stealing property.”
The policeman, young, appeared pleased with the prospect of coming upon a crime.
“Monsieur Gendarme, I know the potter who works in there.”
“Very well, let’s corroborate the fact.” He brought me to the entrance and proceeded to hammer at the door with his baton. Somewhere a dog began angrily barking. Eventually there came the noise of the iron door unbolting and him standing before us, his stare impassive. The policeman and I stood in a snow-blanketed alley, looking at Gauguin with a sweat-soaked shirt, half-opened, and a polka dot bandana around his forehead. He removed the bandana to wipe the glistening sweat from his neck and chest. I was deliberately ignored. He had let his mustache grow longer, his hair roughly shorn and bristled.
“Monsieur le Gendarme, what seems to be the trouble?”
“Mademoiselle claims to be of your acquaintance.”
Here were grown men, I guessed, playing adolescent games at my expense. Gauguin studied me with as much irritation as he could muster. I could only roll my eyes.
“You
again,” he said with actorly sternness.
I played the role, lowered my eyes. “C’est moi.”
Still stern, he asked the young policeman, “Did she give you any trouble? She has a savage streak. You would be in your rights to defend yourself.”
“Monsieur! Never would I strike a woman.”
“Well, those of her ilk can become rambunctious when trying to secure an audience with me. Regular tigresses, they are. The price of my fame as a potter, you see?”
The policeman scratched a clean shaven chin to emphasize his investigative involvement. “The women are fond of your pots?”
“If I must
boast, my piss pots are particularly popular among the gentler sex for their decorative
élan.”
“Perhaps,” came my low-voice suggestion, “the famous Monsieur Gauguin can invite both of us for a tour of his marvelous pots and whatnot.”
The policeman stammered, “My apologies, I must resume walking my post, and a cold night it is.”
Gauguin wiped more sweat from his chest. “Hotter than Hades where I am.”
Blurb:
Winner of the Bronze Medal for Best Historical Fiction - Literary Category - HFC Book of the Year 2022
Sabrine, hospitalized for five years at the infamous Salpêtrière Asylum for Women, gains her release due to intervention of her sister Julie Forette and a young Sigmund Freud. The reunited sisters are introduced to the dazzling art milieu of 1886 Paris, and soon become close friends to the leading Impressionists. Sabrine attracts a cult following as a poetess, the enigmatic "Haiku Princess." Seemingly cured by Freud of her Grand Hysteria, Sabrine soon enters into a tumultuous relationship with Vincent van Gogh.
Julie and Sigmund Freud, alarmed by the eerie parallels between the emotionally volatile couple and their self-destructive impulses, begin an urgent search to discover the root causes for Sabrine and Vincent's growing psychoses. Julie, 'The Dream Collector', seeks their most unforgettable dream for Freud's interpretation and revelations occur.
The Dream Collector is an exploration of the psychological consequences of betrayal, abandonment--and the redemptive power of art.
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