GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

In seventeenth-century Delft, poor, Protestant, 16-year-old Griet must go to work in the Catholic household of Johannes Vermeer. A novel as detailed as the paintings of the Delft Master is read by Ruth Ann Phimister with care and wonderment. Griet and Vermeer grow close as she cleans his studio, grinds white lead, and eventually poses for him. The household is not privy to this intimacy, but Vermeer's wife, Catherina, and daughter, Marta, grow suspicious and jealous. Filled with characters from all strata of society, the story carries the listener on a voyage of time and culture. Phimister does not have to deal with much dialogue. This is a reminiscence, and Griet is a silent and pensive girl, but the overall flow of the reading is charming, entrancing, and engrossing. The finest way to listen to this beautifully crafted book is to have a Vermeer catalog at hand. The Concert, used in the novel to hide the fact that Vermeer is simultaneously painting Griet, was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and is still missing. B.H.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 01]