The Glassmaker

April 1, 2024
Chevalier (Girl with a Pearl Earring) underperforms in this oddball fantastical epic about a Venetian glassmaker who ages incredibly slowly from the late 15th century, when she is a child, through the present day, when she’s in her late 60s. Chevalier introduces the conceit in a prologue: “The City of Water runs by its own clock.” Orsola Rosso’s glassmaker family’s profits are threatened in 1486 when her father, Lorenzo, dies in an accident. Orsola finds an unexpected ally in a woman glassmaker from another family who arranges for her to learn how to make glass beads so she can help support the family as her oldest brother Marco struggles to keep the business afloat. After Marco goes missing following a failed deal, a hunky stranger joins the Rosso enterprise as an apprentice, triggering a predictable romantic subplot between him and Orsola that’s unenhanced by clunky prose (“He wore brown breeches tight as a gondolier’s, and she could not take her eyes off the movement of his generous, muscled backside”). Chevalier then jumps to 1574, as Venice confronts the ravages of the plague. As the novel proceeds, historical events become even more compressed—Chevalier summarizes the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century as marking “the fastest, most extreme change ever.” The superficial perspective gives the impression that the time jumps are window dressing for the clichéd story of a woman’s determination to push back against societal constraints. Readers will be left scratching their heads. Agent: Jonny Geller. Curtis Brown U.K.

May 15, 2024
Chevalier is known for historical novels centered around those who make things, from paintings to embroidery. Her focus here is the world of Murano glassmakers. In the 1480s, Orsola Rosso, from a glassmaking family, is sidelined in the business. As a woman, she's allowed to make only glass beads because "they are inconsequential," yet her skills keep the family afloat through plague and other hardships. The time line progresses like a rock skipped across the Venetian lagoon; main characters stay moored, while the time period hops from the 1480s to the 1570s, 1750s, 1915, and beyond. Through this structure, Chevalier pairs the Rossos' story with Venice's history and figures (e.g., Marietta Barovier, who pioneered Murano glass beads) but also unrelated social commentary (e.g., Jim Crow laws). This authorial intrusion and "ambiguous relationship with time" strains the later periods, but the hustle and bustle of Venice as a trading port is adeptly portrayed in earlier time periods, as is its relationship to the island of Murano. Characterization is well-drawn, and descriptions of the art of glassmaking will draw readers with their beauty and evocation.

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Starred review from May 15, 2024
"Time passes differently" in this centuries-spanning story set on the Island of Glass. This impressive novel about family, art, and tradition takes place on Murano, just off the coast of Venice, Italy, where generations of artisans have created beautiful glassware. Chevalier centers this engaging story on Orsola Rosso, who, as the novel opens in 1486, watches with envy as the men in her family turn molten glass into goblets, platters, and bowls using techniques passed from father to son. Tradition can't stop Orsola, who learns how to make glass beads that can be used to create exquisite jewelry. The money Orsola earns from her creations will save her family many times over the course of the novel as the world changes and Murano's fortunes rise and fall. Chevalier cleverly warps the time continuum on Murano--decades can pass, but the people age only a few years. She situates us in the real world, though, where--like swirls of color that appear to flow through translucent glass--history moves forward from the Italian Renaissance through plagues, the Napoleonic era, and world wars up to the 21st century and Covid-19. Time barely ages the Muranese, but their lives are impacted by the outer world's changes and upheavals. Between fascinating descriptions of artisans at work and the glassware they create, Chevalier embeds a love story that transcends time as Orsola, across 500 years, holds on to the love she carries for a man she knew in her youth. With colorful narrative and dialogue, Chevalier--author of Girl With a Pearl Earring (1999)--lets time roll forward through independent women who are determined to shape glass into works of art and frame life paths of their own design. History flows like molten glass in this stunning novel that borders on fantasy.

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