Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick is about the last two years of Van Gogh. Unlike the books I have read about Van Gogh so far, the author wrote this book with more fiction than the facts. Sunflowers is actually a love story. A love story that exceeds the standards of its time and unfortunately has an inevitable result.
There is a great love between Van Gogh and Rachel in the story. And we listen to it from Rachel, who is depicted as a prostitute to whom Van Gogh gave his ear. While some events in the artist’s life are in direct proportion to their real-time, the love between Rachel and Van Gogh is entirely fictional. We know that Van Gogh gave Rachel his ear and often visited her. Apart from this, we don’t know anything about their relationship.
It is obvious that Sheramy Bundrick has great respect and love for Van Gogh and his works. In Sunflowers, Rachel loves Van Gogh so much that the author seems to be a little relieved with this character because Van Gogh is very much loved. The places where Van Gogh lived and worked are detailed and pleasantly written. Sheramy Bundrick, who is also an art historian, has had no difficulty writing about them because she visited these places. In addition to doctors and friends, Rachel’s friends create colourful characters in the painter’s life. But the love story feels impossible. Rachel’s being a prostitute, and Van Gogh’s previous and horrible relationship with a prostitute ends the affair before it even begins. However, things change a little as the book progresses. Also, the relationship between Gauguin and Van Gogh is a joy to read.
In Van Gogh’s Ear, we’ve learned that Rachel is not a prostitute, but until that book, everyone thought she was. Read this if you want to read a love story starring Van Gogh but do not care for the facts. Enjoy!
Sunflowers
A novel of Vincent Van Gogh, Sheramy Bundrick’s Sunflowers is an arresting and beautiful tale of a young French prostitute’s passionate, doomed relationship with a troubled artist. Vividly evoking a bygone time and place, Bundrick brings her characters to breathtaking life as she seamlessly blends historical fact with riveting speculation. A story that will captivate readers of Susan Vreeland and Karen Essex, and admirers of Tracy Chevalier’s New York Times bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring, Sheramy Bundrick’s exceptional debut, Sunflowers,will linger long in the mind like a breathtaking landscape or an exquisite portrait done in oils.
Sheramy Bundrick
Sheramy D. Bundrick is a professor of art history at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. She is the author of Music and Image in Classical Athens.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
