Someone always nearby A novel of Georgia O'Keeffe and Maria Chabot

This fictionalized exploration of a true friendship provides lush portraits of the remarkable Maria Chabot, Georgia O'Keeffe and her legacy, and the landscape that shaped both their lives. The women met in 1940 and exchanged almost 700 letters until O'Keeffe's death in 1986. Albert's (The Darling Dahlias and the Voodoo Lily, 2021) novel sifts the friendship's breadth and complexity, paying the greatest attention to the 1940s, when Maria was Georgia's "hired hand" at Ghost Ranch and then restored the Abiquiú house that became the artist's home and studio. The chapters are mostly from Maria's point of view, with nonfiction inserts describing, for instance, the history of Abiquiú. Pedernal, the New Mexican mesa that O'Keeffe often painted, looms throughout the novel as motif and symbol. Albert portrays the friendship without sentiment but with deep tenderness. Her prose is finely lyrical, with luscious descriptions of the landscape. While there's much summary, some repetition, and sections recapping past action, they're all of interest and told in the same skillful language as the rest of the narrative. Completely absorbing, the book offers a moving meditation on art, ambition, passion, and friendship--and a breathtaking tribute to an unconquerable land.