Reviews

 

New York Times, 24 January 2000 — Richard Eder
"A brainy novel whose passion is ideas...Chevalier's pattern is complex and revealing." Read entire review

Time, 17 January 2000 — R.Z. Sheppard
"Chevalier is especially adept at character studies: imperious burghers, butchers, biddies and crones. It's as if, after scrutinizing Vermeer's masterworks (and doing the required reading), she began to think and feel like a 17th century Delfter."

New Yorker, January 2000
"...Chevalier's writing skill and her knowledge of seventeenth-century Delft are such that she creates a world reminiscent of a Vermeer interior: suspended in a particular moment, it transcends its time and place."

Wall Street Journal, January 2000
"Ms. Chevalier doesn't put a foot wrong in this triumphant work, the latest of several recent novels based on Vermeer paintings. It is a beautifully written tale that mirrors the elegance of the painting that inspired it."

salon.com, 9 January 2000 — Marion Lignana Rosenberg
"A wondrous, enthralling piece of work. Chevalier's novel sings with the freshness and the thoroughly intoxicating sense of a specific time, place and personality."

USA Today, 6 January 2000 — Denise Kersten
"Chevalier's imagination adds life to an already brilliant painting in this elegantly developed and beautifully written novel."

San Francisco Chronicle, 2 January 2000 — Andrew Roe
"Fittingly, Chevalier's writing style adopts a painterly approach: The elegant prose evokes contemplation, the pace is slow and cumulative, the drama emotional rather than visceral."

Publishers Weekly, 11 October 1999
"... This is a completely absorbing story with enough historical authenticity and artistic intuition to mark Chevalier as a talented newcomer to the literary scene." Read entire review

Guardian, 7 August 1999 — Deborah Moggach
"...This is a wonderful novel, mysterious, steeped in atmosphere and yet firmly rooted in the drudgery and denial of a servant's life. It is deeply revealing about the process of painting and is best read with a volume of Vermeer's paintings open beside you - it then becomes a truly magical experience." Read entire review

Time Out, 8-15 September 1999 — Brian Case
"... She has wonderfully evoked the Delft of the mid-seventeenth century Netherlands, its canals, markets and churches, the endless, uncomplaining drudgery of a domestic servant's life which accompanied Griet's brief time in the sun. The novel is as subtly haunting as the best of Eric Rohmer's films. " Read entire review

Times (London), 18 September 1999 — Rachel Campbell-Johnson
"...Second novels are reputedly the true test of writers, the chance to show that their talents rest on more than luck or hype. Girl With a Pearl Earring more than fulfils such expectations. This is a novel which deserves, and I am sure will win, a prize - or two. " Read entire review