Grady Harp Reviews “Paint it Blue”

May 12, 2015

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Amazon.com Hall of Fame reviewer Grady Harp recently posted this review on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com

Paint it Blue by George Thomas Clark

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oh to be a fly on the wall….
May 6, 2015
By Grady Harp
HALL OF FAME TOP 100 REVIEWER VINE VOICE
Format:Kindle Edition

Controversial George Thomas Clark usually challenges our sense of perception about politics and historical figures as well as contemporary ones – Death in the Ring, The Bold Investor, Hitler Here, Obama on Edge, and Echoes from Saddam Hussein. He currently teaches English as a Second Language for adults in California, and has been a material handler, salesman, newspaper correspondent, and the publisher of a monthly tabloid of features and columns. In this current book he gives his capacious imagination full range and enters the minds of artists both dead and living and allows us to hear their perceptions of not only their work but also that of their compatriots and the history of art and style so f that time in which they lived.

How he came up with this idea is a puzzle: he obviously is an art lover and a knowledgeable art historian, but he also displays insights into the minds of creative people based as much on the paintings he sees as on his rather deep knowledge of their lives.

The results: a series of short stories, each about a particular figure who may or may not introduce the other people in their life cast, and the conversations are lively, funny, touching, and perceptive. From
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Picasso, van Gogh, to Paula Modersohn-Becker, Séraphine Louis, Lee Krasner, Diane Arbus, and on to Ernst Ludwig Kirschner, Otto Dix, Charles White, William H. Johnson, Renoir, Thiebaud, Norman Rockwell, Thomas Eakins (my favorite – because it so blatantly excludes the artist’s proclivity for young men!) and others.

This is a course in art history, the psychology of the artistic temperament, and a parody of sorts. George Thomas Clark simply writes VERY well. Grady Harp, May 15.

Paint it Blue

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George Thomas Clark

George Thomas Clark is the author of Hitler Here, a biographical novel published in India and the Czech Republic as well as the United States. His commentaries for GeorgeThomasClark.com are read in more than 50 countries a month.

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Books

HITLER HERE is a well researched and lyrically written biographical novel offering first-person stories by the Fuehrer and a variety of other characters. This intimate approach invites the reader to peer into Hitler’s mind, talk to Eva Braun, joust with Goering, Goebbels, and Himmler, debate with the generals, fight on land and at sea and…
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Art history and fiction merge to reveal the lives and emotions of great painters Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, William H. Johnson, Lee Krasner, and many others.
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This fast-moving collection blends fiction and movie history to illuminate the stimulating lives and careers of noted actors, actresses, and directors. Stars of this book include Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Clint Eastwood, Cate Blanchett, and Spike Lee.
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In this collection of thirty-eight chiseled short stories, George Thomas Clark introduces readers to actors, alcoholics, addicts, writers famous and unknown, a general, a lovelorn farmer, a family besieged by cancer, extraterrestrials threatening the world, a couple time traveling back to a critical battle, a deranged husband chasing his wife, and many more memorable people…
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Anne Frank On Tour and Other Stories
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In lucid prose author George Thomas Clark recalls the challenges of growing up in a family beset by divorce, depression, and alcoholism, and battling similar problems as an adult.
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These satirical columns allow startlingly candid Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush to explain their need to control the destinies of countries, regions, and, ultimately, the world. Osama bin Laden, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Karl Rove, and other notables, not all famous, also demand part of the stage.
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Where Will We Sleep
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Political Satire for Progressives
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