Cora's turn

By George Cope

Subjects: Women photographers, Fiction, Midlife crisis, Women sculptors

Description: At age forty-five - her life a mess - Cora Gordon was persuaded to reinvent herself as an artist. Cora paid for her decision with agonies of self-doubt; but prodded variously by family and friends - persistent in spite of herself - she bent to her talents and found acceptance as a rising sculptor. Years later, now almost eighty - celebrated for her art and longevity - Cora is upset to learn that a troublemaker from her past has attacked the posthumous reputation of photographer Thorold Carey, a headstrong friend from hardscrabble days. As she reflects on past struggles with the countering claims of art, love, and loyalty - and on the colleagues and relatives who regularly made life so hard - Cora feels more than ever grateful to Carey, for being there when she needed him - for his enduring inspiration. A vindication of her obstreperous friend, Cora's is a tale of two mid-lives in disarray and of the circumstances that brought them together; lives seeming to have little in common - unlikely to benefit from second chances.