THE HAMMOCK: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot, portrays ten remarkable years in the life of James Tissot (1836 - 1902), who rebuilt - and then lost - his reputation in London. By 1870, at age 34, he had become a multi-millionaire celebrity with an opulent new Parisian villa and studio among aristocratic neighbors near the Arc de Triomphe. Handsome and charming, his friends included the painters James McNeill Whistler, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and John Everett Millais. When the Prussians attacked Paris that year, Tissot became a sharpshooter in the artists' brigade defending the besieged capital. Then, after a bloody Communist rebellion fought virtually at the doorstep of his mansion, he fled to London. By the end of the decade, his pictures had pushed the boundaries of Victorian morality, and the British art establishment turned against him. THE HAMMOCK is a psychological portrait, exploring the forces that unwound the career of this complex man. Based on contemporary sources, the novel brings Tissot's world alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.
