After Nora
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€18.99
In early 1920s England, Nora's life is in a state of flux: leaving one husband for another, she embarks on a new existence on the margins of the cultural and political elite, trying to hold onto her aspirations as a painter, along with her marriage. In late 1960s Glasgow, young biologist Maria de Sousa wrestles with her feelings for an older colleague, Adam Curtis, the author's father. The unclear connection between the two impels the author, fifty years later, to seek out answers in Lisbon: what really happened between Adam and Maria? After Nora bridges three generations spanning a century, and moves between London, Paris, southern England, Scotland, Jamaica and Portugal, touching on key scientific discoveries, artistic and historical landmarks, the Carnation Revolution and a global pandemic. Penelope Curtis offers sensitive portraits of those whose lives she has had to imagine in order to understand, in an ambitious debut that movingly resurrects a past whose remnants still permeate the present.
Penelope Curtis grew up in Glasgow. Over the course of a distinguished career in the arts, she has directed the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, Tate Britain in London, and, most recently, the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. As an art historian, she is especially known for her work on Barbara Hepworth, about whom she has written a best-selling biography, and for many exhibitions on the materials and meanings of sculpture. She was made Chevalier de l’Ordre des arts et des lettres by the French government in 2014, then an Officer of the same order in 2018. Her most recent books are The Pliable Plane and Scale: Sculpture 1945-2000. After Nora is her first novel.