HARD WHITE

Alice Neel was a ground-breaking American painter who revolutionized the art of the portrait in the 20th century. In this vividly-rendered novel, Melanie Dugan follows Neel’s unconventional path from her birth in 1900 through World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic, women winning the right to vote, the Depression, World War II, the McCarthy Era, the Civil Rights Movement, and second-wave feminism.

Neel worked for decades in obscurity, struggling with mental health issues, poverty, and misogyny, loving the wrong men while fighting to live on her own terms — and above all to paint.

Woodpecker Lane Press: ISBN: 978-19906-12091