Patrons may choose to attend this event at the King Library or remotely via a Zoom presentation. For those who prefer to view the event from home, please register for the virtual option. Online participants will be able to access the chat feature within Zoom to participate in the discussion. After registering, you will receive an email with instructions on how to join.
Facilitator: Mary Calhoun
Whitney Scharer’s novel covers the story of Vogue model-turned-renowned-photographer Lee Miller, and her search to forge a new identity. Her journey takes us from the cabarets of 1930s Paris to the battlefields of war-torn Europe during World War II.
She went to Paris to start over, to make art instead of being made into it. The Age of Light tells the story of Vogue model turned renowned photographer Lee Miller, and her search to forge a new identity as an artist after a life spent as a muse. “I’d rather take a photograph than be one,” she declares after she arrives in Paris in 1929, where she soon catches the eye of the famous Surrealist Man Ray. Though he wants to use her only as a model, Lee convinces him to take her on as his assistant and teach her everything he knows. But Man Ray turns out to be an egotistical, charismatic force, and as they work together in the darkroom, their personal and professional lives become intimately entwined, changing the course of Lee’s life forever. Lee’s journey takes us from the cabarets of bohemian Paris to the battlefields of war-torn Europe during WWII, from discovering radical new photography techniques to documenting the liberation of the concentration camps as one of the first female war correspondents. Through it all, Lee must grapple with the question of whether it’s possible to reconcile romantic desire with artistic ambition-and what she will have to sacrifice to do so.