The Marriage Of Opposites

"Alice Hoffman’s brilliant paint box of a book is set in the early 1800s in the town of Charlotte Amalie, on the island of St. Thomas. Here we meet the family of Camille Pissarro — the Impressionist painter who will soon rise to fame — starting with his mother, Rachel. (Camille is her favorite son.) As in Hoffman’s previous work, this book is rich with magical realism. There’s a busy panoply of characters, aunts and cousins and random stepfathers. Forbidden marriages abound. And underlying the relationships is a lavish Caribbean canvas: The parrots in the trees, the coconut cake, the scent of jasmine."