Review of \u3ci\u3eSeeking Life Whole: Willa Cather and the Brewsters\u3c/i\u3e by Lucy Marks and David Porter

Seeking Life Whole, eighth in Fairleigh Dickinson\u27s series on Willa Cather, is a volume in two parts, with nine subdivisions, and excellent notes. Part 1 contains Lucy Marks\u27s biographical account of the lives of expatriate painters Achsah Barlow Brewster and her husband Earl H. Brewster, and David Porter\u27s biographical and critical account of the previously unknown relationship between the Brewsters and Willa Cather. The Brewsters went to Europe after their marriage in 1910 to dedicate themselves to painting, nature, study, and a simple, beautiful way of life; they attracted a remarkable range of friends. Their type has been satirized, by their friend D. H. Lawrence among others, but Marks demonstrates their authenticity and its precarious foundation on subsidies from family and friends. Their story is an important part of the history of the expatriate generation, although it has nothing to do with the Great Plains beyond Achsah\u27s erroneous mention of Red Rock, Kansas, as Cather\u27s home at one time