Camille Claudel

Camille Claudel
Alma H. Bond
Publish America
ISBN: 1-4241-1670-8
Fiction, Historical Fiction
Reviewed by Mayra Calvani

In this her latest novel, psychoanalyst-turned-author Alma H. Bond offers the reader a beautiful, yet highly disturbing portrait of Camille Claudel, the gifted French sculptress from the late 1800’s who was mistress to famous sculptor Auguste Rodin.
The story is told in first person through the eyes of Camille herself as she writes her own story while confined to an asylum, where she tragically spent the last thirty years of her life.
In lovely detail Camille pens her life from her early childhood to her very last days, giving a grim glimpse of her love/hate relationship with her mother, her love, edging on incest, to her younger brother, her struggle with the male-dominated artistic establishments of the time, and her turbulent, obsessive, destructive affair with Rodin, who was a married man.
The tale is addictive and totally engrossing. Bond brings to life the dark workings of Camille’s genius mind, from her deepest obsessions to her paranoia. Camille comes across as an arrogant, selfish, ambitious yet complex and tragically frail figure of her times, when women artists were nothing more than "anomalies." Most remarkable is the gradual change in Camille’s mind as she becomes more and more unstable. Flawlessly crafted and beautifully written, Camille Claudel: A Novel comes highly recommended from this reviewer.