Few people know about May Westmacott. But most of them know about Agatha Christie. The surprise is obvious when people discover that they are but the same person. One same writer with two different nomes-de-plumes. The reason it's simple. Agatha didn't want to deceive her devotees, those readers avids of mystery novels. Those novels that elected Christie as their queen. But she wanted to proove that she was a complete writer, that she could write love or romantic books with success. But she wanted from one side don't deceive the Agatha Christie's devotees (offering them a different material with the same deceitful name) and on the other side prove to her editors that she could sell well her books even if they were not mystery novels.
So far, Mary Westmacott wrote and published up to six books, considered as romantic novels with a sharp edge. The first one, The Giant's Bread, has been already commented on this blog.
Now it's the turn to the second one, Unfinished Portrait (Wiki).
The title of the novel is justified in the same introduction. A painter who knows a woman in a dramatic situation tries to describe her in an artistic field in which he is not very used to: writting.
The book dives into the whole childhood of the character of the woman, her teenage, her love stories, her marriage and her divorce. It's a kind of humanistic writting-style which proves that the author was a deep knower of the sharp edge of live. So deep that she herself had some traumatic divorces and was not as successful in love as she had deserved.
It is possible that I enjoyed far more Giant's Bread, but this one is a very interesting reading for all those who like reading about real life, with all the ups and downs, and sharp edges.
It was published in 1934.
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