Several years ago we happened to be in Amsterdam during the fantastic Van Gogh and Gaugin exhibition ‘The Studio of the South’. The paintings were sublime and the audio commentary fascinating, so this painting (thanks Wikipedia commons) makes a fitting finale for my yellow week.
Meanwhile, issue 1 of The Yellow Room has arrived and I leapt on the first story by Zoe Fairbairns, a name I hadn’t heard for quite some time. Zoe was a contemporary of mine at St. Andrews University. We never met, but I went on to read several of her novels. I still have a copy of Daddy’s Girls , but a visit to Zoe’s website reminded me that my favourite was Stand We at Last, a historical saga 
with a feminist slant. If you can get your hands on a copy, read it. I think I might look out for one myself.
It looks like Zoe no longer writes novels but I like her short story ‘Decisions’ very much indeed. Being close to someone who has recently suffered a bereavement, I can relate to the surreal elements of the story as well as the suppressed grief that comes tumbling out at the end.
BTW the book of the Studio of the South exhibition is still available and is the best account I have read of the Van Gogh Gaugin story. The illustrations alone give it a lot more impact than the later Yellow House by Martin Gayford.
Ali Bacon / Books and Other Things 