Sara Loyster - The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit: A Novel

Praise for
The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit

Like Victoria, the heroine of this graceful coming-of-age novel, I have always been drawn to John Singer Sargents famous portrait, but unlike her, I was never able to cross the mystical boundary into the world of the painting. Shy, sheltered, and encumbered by a back brace, Victorias life begins to change when she befriends the Boit sisters and attempts to save them from the predations of a dangerous man.

Mari Coates, author of the award-winning novel The Pelton Papers

Inventive, suspenseful and satisfying, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a delightful read.

Lisa Braver Moss, author of the award-winning novel Shrug

Part historical fiction, part time-travel fantasy, part psychological suspense story, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a highly original coming-of-age novel whose themes include friendship, sexual identity, disability, and activism. This retro #MeToo novelor rather, #NotOnMyWatch novelfollows fifteen-year-old Victoria Hubbard as she straddles two eras: the turmoil of the 1960s and the art world of the 1880s.

Kate Brubeck, writer and editor

Sara Loysters imaginative and beautifully rendered journey into the past shows readers the importance of being courageous for others in the face of danger.

S. Baer Lederman, author and editor

Victoria initially surrenders to the invisible pull from John Singer Sargents famous painting of the Boit sisters out of curiosity. Traversing time through the portal of this grand and mysterious painting, she encounters a situation that sets off alarms in a twentieth-century girls head. Art, art history, and the milieu of different time periods contribute complexity to the tale. Sara Loyster creates a vivid and admirable heroine, someone who acts swiftly and assuredly. It is a focused, fascinating reading experience.

David Howd, childrens librarian

The Daughters of
Edward Darley Boit

Copyright 2021, Sara Loyster

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

Print ISBN: 978-1-64742-165-6
E-ISBN: 978-1-64742-166-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021904173

For information, address:
She Writes Press
1569 Solano Ave #546
Berkeley, CA 94707

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

For Eugenia,
my inspiration always.

... he perceived that it was never fixed,
never arrested, that ignorance, at the instant one touched it,
was already flushing faintly into knowledge,
that there was nothing
that at a given moment you could say
a clever child didnt know.
from The Pupil by Henry James

April, 1963, Boston

Victoria, her mother called through the door. I hope youre getting dressed. I want to leave in thirty minutes. It was a Saturday morning in April, a couple of weeks before Victorias fifteenth birthday, and she was in her room, still in her pajamas, as her mother had guessed.

Victoria didnt reply. She leaned over and turned up the volume on her record player. With the music this loud she could claim she hadnt heard her mother call. When her mother said nothing more, she leaned back on her bed and picked up her book again. She was reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the third time. Soon shed know it by heart.

The song ended and the next one began, the voices spilling off the vinyl in perfect harmony as they did each time Victoria played this record. If I had a hammer, Id hammer in the mo-o-rning... She loved Peter, Paul and Marys version of this song, but it was starting to drive her nuts. If I had a hammer, she thought gloomily, a really big sledgehammer, Id bash down the walls of this house and get out of here.

But, please, please, did it have to be with her mother? Her mother was insisting on taking her to the art museum today which was the last thing Victoria wanted to do. But what choice did she have? She had zero friends and a mother who refused to let her go anywhere alone. And she had to get out of the house.

A firm knock signaled that her mother was back. Victoria! Her mother entered without waiting for a reply. You cant spend another weekend in your room. Please get dressed!

Victoria groaned. Just leave me alone, she mouthed, too softly for her mother to hear.

Victoria! her mother said again, and this time she was starting to sound angry.

All right, all right, Victoria grumbled, putting the book aside and rising from the bed. But dont rush me. I need to shower first.

You need to hurry, her mother warned. The museum gets crowded on Saturdays.

Victoria went into her bathroom and peered at herself in the mirror. Her dark hair, which was short and very curly like her dads, needed a trim. She pushed back her bangs and leaned in close to study the constellation of small bumps that had taken up residence on her forehead. This is only the beginning, she thought. Soon my whole face will be a moonscape of pimples.

She took off her pajamas and began to remove the brace that encased her torso from shoulders to crotch, unfastening the complicated straps and buckles one by one. Acne was an imperfection everyone could see. Scoliosis, a curvature in her spine, was mostly an invisible deformity, but it meant having to wear this torture device twenty-three hours a day. Except for her parents and her old friend Pam, no one knew about her conditionand no one knew how itchy and uncomfortable the brace was, how heavy, how bulky, how hard it was to get the straps adjusted just right. Too tight and it pinched; too loose and it did no good. Shed managed to conceal it under her clothing since shed started wearing it in January, but she didnt know if shed be able to keep it a secret when summer arrived and she started wearing lighter clothes.

Once she was naked, she studied her reflection. She had no breasts to speak of and her hips were as slim as a boys. It was hard to tell if her shoulders were leveling out or not. The tilt wasnt obvious to most people, but Victoria could see it. Shed been wearing the brace for three months now and hoped it was doing its job. She fingered the grooves on her flat stomach caused by the tight straps.

You wont have to wear it once you stop growing, the doctor had said. Hopefully not to your senior prom. His attempt at humor made Victoria want to snarl. What did he know about it? He wouldnt act so jolly if someone had forced him to wear a back brace to high school.

She turned from the mirror, sick of staring at her skinny, crooked body, and stepped into the shower. Thankfully, no one ever saw her naked. The doctor had written her an excuse to get out of gym class, and nobody invited her for sleepovers since Pam had moved away.