How to Be Both

A playful and creative novel, telling two stories one of the 16 year old George and the other about the artist Franchesco del Cossa. The stories are very loosely connected in the sense that George’s mother who has passed recently had taken her to see his Frescos, where the ghost of Franchesco observes her. Naturally, there’s a lot of commentary on art and even on history and how we perceive both as people present and looking into the past, a lot of of the sagely words coming from George’s mom.

My version began with George’s story (half of the books in publication start with Franchesco’s), with her experience post her mother’s death dealing with family and other things. With some flashbacks to times with her mother, which is really where things shine - her mother has a lot of interesting things say to George.

“And which comes first? her unbearable mother is saying. What we see or how we see it?”

“Art makes nothing happen in a way that makes something happen.”

Franchesco’s story is odd but written beautifully in a stream of consciousness style going from past to present. Where the two stories connect is when Franchesco is fascinated by George who visits her artworks with her mother. Otherwise, its tales of her past and upbringing, but more importantly, how she sees the world.

Read this because you like a challenge, you love art and history, and because you’re curious about beauty.

Words I learned, that I loved:

Undulate: Move or go with a smooth up-and-down motion

Cinnabar: Bright red material consisting of mercury sulfide-vermillion; used as a pigment