{"product_id":"9781101874028","title":"War and Turpentine: A novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review's\u003c\/i\u003e 10 Best Books of 2016\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn international best seller: a vivid, masterly novel about a Flemish man who reconstructs his grandfather's story—his hopes, loves, and art, all disrupted by the First World War—from the unflinching notebooks he filled with pieces of his life. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe life of Urbain Martien—artist, soldier, survivor of World War I—lies contained in two notebooks he left behind when he died in 1981. His grandson, a writer, retells his story, the notebooks giving him the impetus to imagine his way into the locked chambers of Urbain's memory. He vividly recounts a whole life: Urbain as the child of a lowly church painter, retouching his father's work; dodging death in a foundry; fighting in the war that altered the course of history; marrying the sister of the woman he truly loved; haunted by an ever-present reminder of the artist he had hoped to be and the soldier he was forced to become. Wrestling with this story, Urbain's grandson straddles past and present, searching for a way to understand his own part in both. As artfully rendered as a Renaissance fresco, \u003ci\u003eWar and Turpentine \u003c\/i\u003epaints an extraordinary portrait of one man's life and reveals how that life echoed down through the generations.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e(With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47035261518064,"sku":"9781101874028","price":26.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781101874028_p0.jpg?v=1763689530","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781101874028","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}