A Pleasant Novel 
 This is a pleasant enough novel to read, that will probably please fans of historical romance, but it doesn't really go anywhere. It is a problem that arises, I think, partly from the rather anodyne quality of Alice Hoffman's writing, and partly from the lack of focus inherent in her choice of subject: is this a book about an unknown mother or her famous son? 
 Camille Pissarro, the son in question, was arguably the central figure of the Impressionist movement. He was the only artist to exhibit in all eight group exhibitions, and he served as mentor to many of his younger colleagues. But I am prepared to bet that he is not the first, second, or even third name to spring to mind when most people think of the Impressionists. Just being a great painter does not make him an interesting figure for a novel. 
 But there are certainly interesting points in his childhood that you can see a novelist wanting to pick up on. He was born in 1830 on St. Thomas, now one of the US Virgin Islands but at that time a Danish possession. His parents were both Jewish, but their marriage was not at first sanctioned by the local synagogue, since his mother was the young widow of her new husband's uncle; as a result, the family was ostracized and Camille (then called Jacobo Pizzarro) and his brothers were sent to the charity school for the local children of color. I can see that the colorful setting and the hint of incest might give spice to the story, but at this remove the scandal seems largely innocuous. Besides, it affects mainly the two parents, whom Hoffman sees as preferring love over social acceptance; it is less a factor in the lives of their offspring. 
 Accordingly, the first half of the book is the story of Rachel Monsanto Pomie, Camille's mother, whom Hoffman sees as a strong-minded woman. It tells of her childhood in the idyllic Caribbean setting (rather like the opening of 
 Wide Sargasso Sea 
 by Jean Rhys), her love of reading, her childhood friendship with the half-caste daughter of their maid, her problems with her mother, and her acceptance of early marriage to a widowed merchant in order to shore up the failing business of her beloved father. Hoffman knows the tropes of romantic literature from Jane Eyre onwards, and she tells the story in a mildly interesting, though seldom exciting way. I found her best in describing Rachel's first marriage, to this much older man still in thrall to his dead wife, who nonetheless treats Rachel with kindness and understanding. The start of her supposedly passionate affair with Frederic, her late husband's Parisian nephew, is surprisingly tame. 
 Almost exactly half-way through the book, their third son, Camille, is born, and Rachel's story virtually stops. Of course Hoffman has to make him as much a problem for his mother as she was for hers, and of course everything is now described in terms of the colors seen by the budding artist's eye. But the momentum of the book, such as it was, is broken. Although there are occasional points of interest between there and the end, the story loses much sense of organic development. Instead of a true novel, I would call it a mildly pleasing confection assembled from a few facts and a lot of random invention.