The Seeing Garden
For a person born with the feel and “seeing” of art, the expectations of a determined, upwardly mobile family in 1910 crush the spirit. And for a young woman obliged to her aunt and uncle, her generous guardians after her parents’ deaths, a sense of obligation and social “must” are closing even more tightly around her future. So 19-year-old Catherine Ogden struggles to accept an excellent match, one in which she hopes she’ll someday love the wealthy, handsome, and powerful William Brandt. Brandt is determined to have her for his wife, and Catherine has no acceptable reason to refuse, has she?
Brandt’s magnificent home outside San Francisco offers a stunning counterpoint to the gritty New York world Catherine’s grown up in. Even more than the house that shows off the railroading fortune of its owner, the gardens and grounds speak to her: lush, colorful even in the dry season, and ever-changing, they form a living palette. With the deferential but skilled assistance of a Hispanic gardener, Catherine begins to explore her own inherited delight in color and form.
Her struggles to fashion a compromise among her confused feelings and her aunt and uncle’s pressing desires are beautifully evoked among the slow revelations of Moyer’s well-crafted novel of society and American cultural shifts. Hints at the steely determination of her husband-to-be don’t deter Catherine from responding to her obligations. In subtly evoked growth, however, Moyer suggests there could be another garden gateway to slide open—one that will offer Catherine the chance to develop a deep and abiding love for people who value her vision.
