Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite

In Irene Latham’s Some Starry Night, in 1886, struggling painter Vincent van Gogh arrives in Paris, hoping the city can finally give him the artistic future that has escaped him for years. At the same time, Emily Dickinson secretly leaves Amherst after learning that Bright’s disease is slowly killing her and travels to France, determined to experience a life larger than the isolation that has defined her adulthood. When the two meet inside the Louvre, Emily is drawn toward Vincent’s restless vision of art while Vincent discovers in Emily someone who understands the private fears driving his work. Their connection pulls Emily into the unfamiliar world of Montmartre and pushes Vincent toward a new style of painting shaped by emotion instead of convention as both attempt to create something lasting before illness and separation overtake them.

In Some Starry Night, Irene Latham places Emily Dickinson beside Vincent van Gogh in Paris. The author does an amazing job of conveying the texture of the late nineteenth century through period details: Vincent taking newly available tubed paints into the streets of Montmartre to work outdoors for hours at a time, Emily enduring the limited medical knowledge surrounding Bright’s disease. Latham is methodical in character development, and we see how this transforms creation itself, particularly where Emily’s influence reaches beyond companionship and begins altering Vincent’s future in tangible ways. Of course, the title nods to one of the most famous paintings in the world, and Latham weaves it in, complete with a tragic ear incident. But it's the journey that matters here. Latham describes Montmartre cafés, filled with exhausted painters, and the flower-covered Duchamp garden where Vincent paints Emily’s portrait. Beautifully written and totally immersive, readers who adore literary and art history, romantic tragedy, and nineteenth-century Paris will adore this book. Very highly recommended