The Portrait* (Dell, 1995) is a historical romance set in New York City, in Fall of 1855. It begins with mousy, quiet Imogene Carter being brought by her godfather, Thomas Gosney, to the studio/school of famous painter Jonas Whitaker. Gosney happens to be Whitaker’s most influential patron, so the artist cannot refuse the pressure to take on Imogene, a wealthy young woman from Nashville who has had little formal training, most of it in drawing at her finishing school. Imogene’s motives are not clear at first. She seems deeply interested in and attracted to art. Yet her feelings about her own ability and her own identity as an aspiring artist are so bound up with survivor’s guilt over the death of her vivacious and artistically gifted older sister, and her attempt to win her withholding father’s approval, that it’s hard to figure out who Imogene is at first. It seems even she is not sure.
One thing is clear: Imogene is determined to stay in Jonas’s class, and he is equally determined to get rid of her. Jonas sizes her up in an instant, thinking, “He’d seen her kind before, the cossetted, easily dismissed ladies of society — women who played at watercolors and drew pretty little houses in the country.” Deciding he would enjoy “destroying her with a word,” he tries various forms of intimidation, some of it sexual, none of which works.
At first Imogene refuses to give in because she doesn’t want to disappoint her father yet again. But quickly her attraction to Jonas gives her a more compelling reason to stay. Whitaker is terrifying, “stalking the room like a restless cat” and “firing out criticisms with the lethal force of a canon.” Descriptions of Jonas resonate as a kind of “old school” or contemporary Harlequin Presents hero, a guy dripping with arrogance, sarcasm, derision, bitterness, cynicism, insults, and, at times, outright anger. But Imogene bears it all stoically. She endures, vowing, “He would not break her. He would not.”
During a particularly tense lesson, Imogene dislodges the canvas, and Jonas lunges for it gracelessly. In that moment, Imogen realizes he has a false hand, and “that his false hand was the most real thing about him, and that it somehow kept him human. She thought suddenly, We’re not that different. He was no more perfect than she was.” She has the sudden realization that “He could not make her leave, and she would not go. The thought made her smile.” Imogene is never going to be a great artist, but as their relationship mellows slightly and they become attracted to one another, she is getting something from Jonas that she values more: intense interest, making her feel “vibrant and alive and passionate” for the first time in her life.
It turns out there is a madness behind Jonas’ method, literally: he suffers from what today we would call bipolar disorder. Through the course of the novel, which takes us from mania to depression and back to a kind of moderate middle ground, Jonas has pretty much all of the symptoms of the disorder as listed on this NIH webpage. Although I think it was more common in the genre in the mid-1990s for heroes sleep with other women well after meeting the heroine, in The Portrait, Jonas’s desperate need for sex comes across not just as rakish behavior but another manifestation of the impulsivity common among those with bipolar disorder (in the manic phase). Same for his lack of emotional control and grandiose thoughts. With regard to his drug (opium) and alcohol use, as Chance writes in her author’s note, the “treatments” for “madness” in the nineteenth century were nonexistent: inpatient clinics, which Jonas has experienced and lives in terror of, or self-medication with drugs or alcohol.
The Portrait is a very, very intense book. There is no humor or levity. It is a close psychological study of a hero with bipolar disorder who fears both connection and abandonment, and of a heroine who comes into her own by being needed, being found necessary by a brilliant, fascinating, attractive man. Imogene has to reframe her attitude towards her family, seeing her sister and father for who they are (were), and she has to carve out an identity very different from what either of them would have found satisfying. Imogene’s personal triumph comes not from her own artistry, but in serving as a model and muse for Jonas (and, at times, the other students).
It was not easy for me to separate my own personal tastes and biases from my assessment of Imogene and Jonas’ relationship. Jonas is not just a little moody. He suffers badly, to the point of having delusions and suicidal thoughts (his missing hand is the result of one of those depressive episodes). In one of his manic phases, he drags Imogene to a fancy restaurant in the city and behaves in a way that I could easily add to Tumperkin’s list of Excruciating moments in romance. Jonas is very sick, and, in that scene, everyone knows it: he is the object of fear, derision, and pity. It’s not a good look for a romance hero, but I applaud Chance’s commitment to portraying a severe, untreated form of the disease in an authentic manner, something that requires her to give the hero traits and experiences which the average romance reader (or maybe just me) might find unattractive.
I felt pessimistic about Imogene’s and Jonas’s chances for a happy life as I read The Portrait. Yet, in the cool hour, as I write this review, I ask myself: why do I feel that the chances are better when it’s a marriage between a duke and an orphan, or an earl and a former courtesan, or an alcoholic hero? They really have no better (or worse) chance of success, and to single out bipolar disorder makes no sense. On the other hand, Imogene has chosen a difficult path. She’ll have to endure the rages, the inappropriate behavior, the hiding in a dark room for days or weeks, and the rest of it. Imogene has a wonderful, calming effect on Jonas, though, “a serenity that called to him through his torment, a promise of redemption” and she doesn’t see this role as a chore at all. Quite the opposite: “He didn’t frighten her. He never had. He filled her with a sense of promise, of potential, and the only frightening thing about that was the thought that she might not fulfill it.”
Still, I found it hard to be thrilled for Imogene, not because Jonas is mentally ill, but because she seems to have nothing for herself but the male gaze (and some super sex, it must be noted). Jonas’ constant references to her as his work of art were unsettling, and I had to struggle to put them behind me as his attitude changed and he saw more to her. I’m so used to historicals now where the heroine has something else going on, either a career or a significant volunteer sideline saving London’s poor or somesuch, that I forgot what it was like to read a heroine who just wants to be loved and to love in return. And Jonas needs someone who is willing to put everything aside to care for him. “Let me keep you safe,” Imogene tells him, and the reader knows this is at once her life’s work, her happiness, and her coming into her own.
I haven’t even mentioned the wonderful writing, the way Chance is able to integrate Jonas’ creativity into their relationship and into his illness and into his character. He doesn’t just see Imogene as beautiful, he sees her as Beauty, as “his creation”. But when he drags her into Delmonico’s, hair loose and paint in her dress, risking both their reputations, the reader is encouraged to consider the line between “love is blind” and outright psychosis (and in general, the line — or connection — between madness and creativity. Imogene refers to his madness as “the price for genius.”).
It was a treat to read a historical romance set in the New York art world. A key theme is Jonas’s rejection of the respectable world as it has rejected him, especially the “upper classes.” His desire to introduce Imogene to the demimonde, the world outside of respectability, takes them all over the city, to salons and rooftops. The chapters while Jonas is in his “manic”, high energy, magnetic, charming, “touched with fire” mode are breathtaking reads, as he tries to convey to Imogene his expansive, optimistic worldview:
“Broaden your mind,” he said. “See the whole of it, the complexity. Knowing the world is understanding what you see. Apply that to art and you have all of life before you, all of God.”
The Portrait is an unusual, well-written, fascinating romance. I didn’t get lost in it the way I have with some others, but the food for thought it provided more than made up for it.
*On the author website, The Portrait and Chance’s other romance novels are not listed under “Books”, but rather, under “Other Works.” I read this book on my Kindle (ebook price at Amazon is $5.99. Be aware there is an irritating tendency to replace “I”s with “1″s in the e-text.)
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I felt so bad for Imogene and how her father treated her and her rejection of her former lover, who I think married her sister instead?
This was one tumultuous books and I wasn’t sure the HEA would work for me because of how unstable Jonas was.
@KB/KT Grant:
Actually, she had a brief affair with her sister’s fiance after her sister’s death. She was desperate to become her like her sister, even in her choice of romantic partners.
It’s not that I don’t believe in the HEA … because I honestly think Jonas and Imogene will be miserable without each other. It’s just that there were so few calm, “ordinary” moments in the short book (understandably) that I found little to balance the more difficult ones, and so am more focused on the difficulties.
Wow. That’s one amazing review. You’ve summed up how I feel about The Portrait, including the “I didn’t get lost in it the way I have with some others” bit. In a way, it was like watching a reality show episode. So compelling that it’s hard to look away during dark or awkward moments and there are some moments that reward us for going through those dodgy moments.
That’s pretty much I felt about Megan Chance’s other historical romances, come to think of it. Such as The Way Home (a handsome gambler left a sharecropper’s daughter pregnant and his shy and socially awkward brother picks up the pieces), A Candle in the Dark (a suspected murderer forces an alcoholic doctor to pose as her husband on a ship through Panama), Fall From Grace (two western outlaws with a complex and incredibly dark relationship) and many more. She was up there with Sandra Canfield/Karen Keast, LaVyrle Spencer (I’ll kick anyone who didn’t like November of the Heart), Theresa Weir, Laura Leone, Patricia Gaffney and more. I think I like the fact that Chance’s heroines are flawed, and do the best they can try within wherever they are. That’s probably why I enjoyed Taylor Chase/Gayle Feyrer’s historical romances so much. In a way Chance makes her characters work for their HEAs.
I find Imogene and Jonah’s HEA easier to acceptable than most heroes and heroines from other historical romances. Coping with an illness that will last for the rest of their lives seems easier to accept than the marriage of a duke and a vicar’s daughter because the latter will always deal with catty comments and eye cuts from their peers, and their children will suffer along the way which I find rather sad. Or so that was how I thought at the time, at least.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Jonah’s sexual orientation, though. For me, he was the first hero who crossed the line. I didn’t come across another until one of Anne Stuart’s Ice series nearly ten years later. Or did you leave it out because you thought it might be a spoiler?
I love Tumperkin’s list of Excruciating moments in romance! I hadn’t seen that before. For me, the most excruciating moment was a historical romance where the heroine threatened to kill herself in front of hero and his lady friend (mistress, perhaps?) as well as other people, and the hero said something like “Please do. At least it’ll entertain us.” Of course, the heroine couldn’t do it. The hero laughed, prompting the others to laugh at her as well. She ran away, feeling utterly humiliated (I was right there with her). So excruciating that I put it down and never picked it up again. I love one comment for mentioning Suzanne Robinson’s Elizabethan-era romance, Lady Gallant. A true case of a little mouse that roared. Nora really made him work for her forgiveness. Anyroad, thank you for that link.
I love Megan Chance – every one of her novels is unusual, which is a remarkable accomplishment. The only one I ended up not liking was The Gentleman Caller.
I’ve been curious about the historical novels she writes now, but have not tried any yet. Anybody else read them? I was most interested in Prima Donna, City of Ash, and The Spiritualist.
@Maili:
What what what?
@Jessica: His bisexuality. I believe he occasionally slept with Frederic ‘Rico’ Childs, his closest friend and fellow artist. My recollection may be wrong, but I think Imogene even caught them naked in bed together one time?
@Victoria Janssen: I read The Spiritualist (I own but haven’t read her other newer works yet) and found it an okay read. It’s still rich and intense, but it’s somewhat emotionally detached, comparing with her older works. Basically, I enjoyed it and probably will enjoy other novels — as long as I separate the new Megan Chance from the old Megan Chance.
Lordy, I’ve never had Chance show up on my radar before this review. If Gaffney is mentioned, then I’ll be trying some Chance. I just partially read two DNF historicals that ate up too much of my precious time with characters that had no substance and plots that were better left undeveloped. I’d much rather read something challenging.
@Maili, thanks!
Love the sound of this and enjoyed all your HEA thoughts which I may come back to when I get round to reading this. I’m sure someone once recc’d another Megan Chance to me about an alcoholic? Did I imagine that?
Excellent review Jessica! I felt the same way about this book: it was a great character study, but I felt detached from the romance and the emotions. But yes on the point about Imogene: a heroine who just wants to love and be loved. Did this detract from her characterization, or did it make her richer? As someone who likes to give my historical heroines a “job” so to speak, I now wonder: does the need to make the heroine more than just a lover a progression in the portrayal of women in the genre, or is it a quality to make her appear progressive and/or unique?
@Victoria Janssen: The Spiritualist was just okay for me. Oddly enough, I found it to be the most “historical romance” historical out of Chance’s entire backlist. I did like City of Ash–though with a few reservations (I wrote a review on Goodreads if you care to look it up).
I’ve been skimming through and though I think you can definitely make a case for them having sex (or at least threeways) together, I find it hard to think of Jonas as bisexual. Unless I missed something, his sexual thoughts and energy seem to be exclusively directed towards women. I guess it’s all in your definition. Perhaps Chance was discouraged from adding more to it.
“I now wonder: does the need to make the heroine more than just a lover a progression in the portrayal of women in the genre, or is it a quality to make her appear progressive and/or unique? ”
A great question, Evangeline. You might be interested in this YA romance: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4976297-down-by-the-river
I’ve always thought it very brave in depicting a teenage girl who genuinely only wants to be a wife and mother. It was one of my favorite stories as a teen.
BTW, I’ve thought of one (movie) example in which the man takes the supportive, loving role: “Say Anything.” Can anyone think of a literary example?
@willaful: There was a huge debate years ago whether he was a “true” bisexual. Did his condition make a “victim” of him, or was it a case of him embracing whenever caught his attention?
Some insisted he was heterosexual because, as you noted, he seemed interested in women only. However, some others disagreed. Of course, one reader asked Megan Chance to settle the debate. If I remember rightly: she declined the invitation, preferring to leave it up to each reader’s interpretation.
But she – accidentally, I think – dropped a hint that Jonas was a slave to his creativity, curiosity, emotions and interest in distinctive personalities and/or physical beings. I still don’t know whether Chance was discouraged from expanding this aspect, though. She was one of authors who believed they shouldn’t interfere with readers’ interpretations and perspectives of their books.
BTW, I’ve thought of one (movie) example in which the man takes the supportive, loving role: “Say Anything.” Can anyone think of a literary example?
I’m stabbing my eye for saying this, but Lori Foster tends to have that type in her contemporary romance novels. There are more, but her books come to mind first.
@Karenmc:
You are only a couple weeks behind me. It happens a lot that I suddenly discover someone who has written a ton of widely read books (last time was with Jane Gibson).
Like Willaful, I think this is an excellent question. I don’t know what would count as progression in the genre, necessarily, because the target keeps changing and moving. I do think it is possible that historical heroines are given jobs to appeal more to today’s women readers, most of whom work outside the home. (Please note: I am not making any comment as to whether doing so is historically accurate, or whether there is something wrong with this practice if it is not.).
I wish that the choice to live for love (or, more generally, to care for dependent others, not that Jonas counts as one of these all the time) were more open to everyone in our society (not just women), and I wish the choice did not have an impact on one’s life prospects (I wish society recognized its value in more tangible ways.). But, the choice to do it is very admirable, and more than that, necessary.
@willaful: Thanks for looking through the text. I haven’t had a chance, but I am thinking the overtones were there.
and it is funny you mention Say Anything. It was on TV last night and I watched the entire thing. You are so right about Lloyd Dobler (sp?). As I age, I find I appreciate him more and more.
@Maili:
I am saving this quote forever and I am going to whip it out when you least expect it.