Author Christine Coulson speaks with Elizabeth McGowan, Williams College’s Robert Sterling Clark Professor of Art, about her new novel, One Woman Show. Coulson spent twenty-five years writing for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her final project was to write wall labels for the museum’s new British Galleries. During that time, she dreamt of using the Met’s strict label format to describe people as intricate works of art. The result is this bullet of a novel that imagines a privileged twentieth-century woman as an artifact—an object prized, collected, and critiqued. One Woman Show revolves around the life of Kitty Whitaker as she is defined by her potential for display and moved from collection to collection through multiple marriages. Coulson precisely distills each stage of this sprawling life, every brief snapshot in time a wry reflection on womanhood, ownership, value, and power.

Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524. A book signing follows the talk. Copies of One Woman Show will be available for purchase at the talk and in the Museum Store.

Image: Taylor Jewell