List $25.95

Written by Tracy Chevalier - Audio book performed by Ruth Ann Phimister - Unabridged Fiction - 5 CASSETTES - 8 hours

Publisher, Recorded Books (March 2001)

Listen to an audio clip NOTE: You will need RealPlayer Basic to listen. It's FREE !

After earning a graduate degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, Tracy Chevalier was immediately recognized for her literary talent. In Girl with a Pearl Earring, she recreates the 17th-century world of Johannes Vermeer. This haunting work of historical fiction received rave reviews in publications as diverse as The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor. In 1664, sixteen-year-old Griet enters the Vermeer household as a servant. Daughter of a Delft tile maker, she has a natural eye for color and design. Daily, she cleans the studio, learning much about how Vermeer sees the people he paints. As his attention focuses on her, she slowly becomes one of his subjects. Tracy Chevalier fills this unusual love story with the shades, sounds, and textures of everyday life in Holland. Narrator Ruth Ann Phimister perfectly voices Griet’s growing awareness of the intrigues surrounding her and the need to define the value of her life.

About the Author: “I try to put the success of Girl with a Pearl Earring out of my head when I write … I still feel like a novice. Sometimes I read what I’ve just written and think, Yuck … I might have a good writing day, but the next day I still have to face the blank sheet of paper. It’s a painful process but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s kind of like running—you feel terrible for those first 10 minutes but then it gets better and afterwards you feel great.”

Born in 1962, Chevalier grew up in Washington, DC. After earning a B.A. in English from Oberlin College (Ohio), she moved to London, England