The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
A novel By Sara Loyster
When fifteen-year-old Victoria grudgingly accompanies her mother to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, she has no idea her life is about to change forever.
While there, she falls under the spell of the famous John Singer Sargent portrait The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. Drawn into the portrait’s shadowy depths, Victoria finds herself transported back in time to the world of the four troubled Boit sisters.
Spanning a brief period in the lives of John Singer Sargent and the Boit family, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a coming-of-age tale that explores both the murky world of Paris in 1882 and the upheaval going on in Victoria’s own time, the early sixties, all the while pondering possible answers to the questions raised by Sargent’s most enigmatic work of art.
Right Image: Portrait of John Singer Sargent
Credit: National Academician Database
“The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a fascinating and magical work of art about a fascinating and magical work of art.”
-Annie Barrows, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and an ALA Notable Children’s Book Award Wining author of Ivy and Bean
“A well-written and absorbing blend of fantasy, art history, and an exploration of the type of photographic pedophilia of which Lewis Carroll was suspect. The copy of the Daughters painting on the cover is a mystery all by itself.”
-Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Newbery Award winning author
“…richly imaginative….An absorbing, sensitive meld of fiction and history.”
-Kirkus Reviews
"Far from living in the past, John Singer Sargent's compelling portrait of four sisters continues to spark the imagination, inspiring stories of past and present secrets in Loyster's inventive fiction. It isn't just art that can transcend time, but also acts of courage.”
-Dr. Erica E. Hirshler, author of Sargent’s Daughters; the Biography of a Painting and Croll Senior Curator of Painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
“In Sara Loyster’s spellbinding novel, fourteen year-old Victoria finds herself falling into a museum painting and time traveling to 1882 Paris. There she begins a relationship with Edward Boit’s younger daughters and confronts painful issues of predation and abuse. In the process she learns tools that allow her to better navigate dilemmas that have confronted young women through the ages. Literary and beautifully imagined, this book is a treasure for adults and young adults alike.”
-Charlie Price, Edgar Award-Winning Young Adult Author