Madame Picasso

By: Anne Girard

Narrated by: Leslie Carroll

Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's Summary

The mesmerizing and untold story of Eva Gouel, the unforgettable woman who stole the heart of the greatest artist of our time.

When Eva Gouel moves to Paris from the countryside, she is full of ambition and dreams of stardom. Though young and inexperienced, she manages to find work as a costumer at the famous Moulin Rouge, and it is here that she first catches the attention of Pablo Picasso, a rising star in the art world. A brilliant but eccentric artist, Picasso sets his sights on Eva, and Eva can't help but be drawn into his web. But what starts as a torrid affair soon evolves into what will become the first great love of Picasso's life.

With sparkling insight and passion, Madame Picasso introduces us to a dazzling heroine, taking us from the salon of Gertrude Stein to the glamorous Moulin Rouge and inside the studio and heart of one of the most enigmatic and iconic artists of the 20th century.

©2014 Diane Haeger (P)2014 Recorded Books

Riddled with cliches

This book takes place in 1911-1915 but is so full of 21st century cliches it was almost impossible to listen to. The main character's emotions are "a perfect storm," she would do something "in a heartbeat," she "didn't see that one coming!" etc, etc. I found myself saying aloud "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" so many times. Plus, overall the writing is clumsy with consistently awkward sentence construction--"she felt fear in her heart" instead of "she was afraid"--- and the only reason I finished it is that the characters-- Picasso, his lovers, and the other artists of that time---are of great interest to me. There are so many excellent historical novels out there, give this one a pass.

Picasso - The Early Years

Factually-based, historical novel about the relationship between Pablo Picasso and a young French woman, Eva Gouel. They met and fell in love during the period 1911 and 1914. The story was a little repetitive, but for those who like historical fiction it provided an excellent description of Paris life in the early 20th century. The narrator did a terrific job with the various accents and characters.

Weak with a weird ahistorical writing style

Pretty terrible really - interesting and promising premise, but let down by some sort of odd ahistorical chick-lit stylings in the writing. At one stage Eva is said to have a 'trendy' haircut. Omg. What?! Then there is the abomination of the narrator's Spanish accent reading Picasso. Just so no! Could not wait for it to stop.

Great love story, abrupt end but good book

I enjoyed this book tremendously. Tear jerker the end. I felt the love between Picasso and Eva. This book has inspired me to learn more about the artist. The ending was too abrupt. I didn't realize it had ended and reviewed the last bit again.

If you like this book read Paris wife about Hemingway's first wife. Excellent!

Narrator's Accents Unnecessary

The narrator's Spanish accents did not add to the performance. Otherwise, I enjoyed the presentation.

OK - not great

disclaimer - I adore the Outlander series of book by Diana Galbaldon, narrated by Davina Porter. They made me love historical fiction. I am always searching for more like it. The story and performance of Madame Picasso does not come close to the perfection I find in listening to the Outlander books, and maybe it's just not fair to use those books & Davina's performances as a measuring stick for other books. That being said, I was able to finish this story, it was OK, but I didn't love it. I didn't really end up caring so much for the characters that were depicted and I never got a vivid feel for that specific moment in history or the places that were described. The accents by the narrator seemed 2nd rate to me. I would probably not recommend it to anyone I know, especially to those I know who are already familiar with the quality of story and performance of the Outlander books.

Grimacing through the attempted Spanish accent

Pity. The story was enjoyable. Poor performance. The Eva / Picasso dialogues sounded more like ValleyGirl / Count Dracula. Would not recommend

Compelling story and portrait

It was hard to turn this story off when it was time to get work done. The people, art, music and Picaso's' Paris was brought to life through the eyes of Eva. I paused partway through to look at images of his masterpieces again to see the details of the paintings described in this loving story.

Well written and enjoyable story but...

I enjoyed Madame Picasso. The story was engaging and well done. But I found the reader's Spanish dialogue and certain French pronunciations torturous. I could barely stand to listen to the passages with Picasso and wished throughout that the reader had used some other means to signal Picasso's speech, anything other than attempting to render him with such a thick Spanish accent. In fact, at times the accent seemed more Russian or even German. It was so bad I almost gave up on the book several times. A real shame!

I couldn’t stop listening!

I rarely write a review unless the book was exceptional and this book was! The narrator did a great job also and really brought the characters to life. I dreaded the story to end. I highly recommend.

Interpretation of characters

My main problem with this book was the interpretation of some of the characters and the narration, the latter impacting adversely on the former.
Whilst I understand that the book is written in English and narrated by an American, I found it difficult to understand why the only character narrated with an accent was Picasso, and that the accent used was a deep, extremely off-putting Russian accent. If the narrator is unable to do a Spanish accent,a Russian one will not do as a substitute. Furthermore the two characters who were Polish, in whom a Slavic accent may have been forgivable were narrated with an American accent. Liberties were also taken with Picasso's character, particularly around the story-line involving Louis having struck Eva, and Picasso's disgust and fury. Picasso himself was known to have been violent towards women, Fernande in particular.
As well as this, Fernande seemed to be presented as a drawling, sarcastic Southern Belle, which was unfair and not at all representative of how she was.
Similarly, there is much literature that gives a clear picture of the characters of Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas which the writer seems to have entirely ignored.
All in all I quite enjoyed the book, but it's a shame the writer and/or the narrator seemed to have little understanding of Europeans and seemed to have failed to capture the true characters of many of the key players.