“Over the years, certain stories in the history of a family take hold. They’re passed from generation to generation, gaining substance and meaning along the way. You have to learn to sift through them, separating fact from conjecture, the likely from the implausible. Here is what I know: Sometimes the least believable stories are the true ones.”
With these words Christina Olson introduces herself in A Piece of the World. It is a historical fiction, which plausibly imagines the story of Christina Olson, the subject of Andrew Wyeth’s best-known painting: Christina’s World. Andrew Wyeth appeared at the Olson farm in 1939 and spent the next 20 years wandering around the property, painting at the house and taking inspiration from the farm and its two remaining residents: Christina and Al.
Christina was born on her family’s farm in a small coastal town of Maine. Her grandmother told stories of the family leaving Salem generations ago to avoid the family’s shameful role in the Salem witch trials. Generations of seafarers followed and the old house is full of memorabilia of those ancestors. Her grandmother too, sailed with Christina’s grandfather, and she loves to tell her grandchildren of her adventures. Christina’s mother, in contrast, has lived her entire life on the farm. She is the last of the “Hathorn” family. In her 30s she marries a stranded Swedish sailor, who trades the sailing life for farming.
Christina, like her mother lives her entire life on the farm. She is the oldest child, but is born with a disability that makes her unable to control her limbs. Nevertheless she stubbornly gets around the farm, learns to do chores, sew and stumbles to school. At 7 she refused to be sent away for treatment. The disease is never diagnosed and gets progressively worse as she ages.
The farm has no amenities such as running water or electricity, water must be pumped, fires fed and oil lamps extinguished at night. Christina has 3 younger brothers, two of whom leave the farm and marry. Al, the closest to her in age, remains on the farm, giving up his love of the water and desire to fish.
Christina is strong willed and determined to get around on her own. Her life is hard, and she has no joy. In school she likes to read, but her parents cut her schooling off early. As a young woman she has a summer admirer who eventually breaks her heart. As she ages she is bitter, and resents any assistance that is offered. In part she feels that people cannot or will not see beyond her disability, but in lashing out she is intentionally hurtful.
So why would Olson allow Wyeth run of the property and take time to sit for him? Was she a muse for his work? The book, like the painting doesn’t reveal all the answers. Certainly there is a great deal of mutual respect. They pretty much leave each other alone. At the end of the book Christina sees the painting for the first time, and for the first time feels seen. Is this story true? It really doesn’t matter, it’s just a good story.