A two-part novel that can be read in either order: in one half, the spirit of a fifteenth-century Ferrarese painter, Francesco del Cossa, looks back on a life spent disguised as a boy to paint; in the other, a modern teenager, George, grieves her mother and becomes fascinated by a fresco in Italy. The halves echo and refract each other on art, gender, time and loss.
Books mentioned in How to be both (4)
The Eel by Eugenio Montale: “green spirit seeking life where only drought and desolation sting; spark that says that everything begins when everything seems charcoal — Eugenio Montale / Jonathan Galassi (epigraph; the poem is “The Eel”)”
Il Libro dell’Arte by Cennino Cennini: “The great Cennini … in his Handbook for Painters … Good work, good pay, as the great Cennini says in his Handbook for picturemakers”
As You Like It by William Shakespeare: “the festival she was working at last summer, she was selling and tearing tickets for As You Like It at St John’s … Heigh-ho, green holly. Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.”
Hamlet by William Shakespeare: “at her afternoon performance of the Hamlet someone had exploded a bottle of cherryade just as she started doing her rosemary for remembrance speech”