22 Dec 2020 Off Island, by Lara Tupper

Off Island, by Lara Tupper, is a beautiful book—a meditation on love and connection and what it means to feel and breathe and be human.

“Pure color!” wrote Paul Gauguin to his wife, Mette, from the South Seas. “Everything must be sacrificed to it.”

Tupper imagines Gauguin—chasing new light, new color—ran away to a new island, a rugged outpost off the coast of Maine. There, Gauguin leaves behind some paintings and letters and maybe a child.

A hundred years later, another Maine painter, Pete, finds himself torn between his muses: the sturdy, reliable Molly, and the unhappy, peripatetic Karla – who promises to take him to other, newer islands.

Off Island, published in print by Encircle Publications and brought to audio by OrangeSky Audio and Findaway, captures the lure of the unknown and the pull of the familiar and questions what it means to be loyal to one’s art, one’s family, and one’s home.

It was an absolute joy to narrate.