Minnie of the Golden West - A Winter of Surprises

By Huguette Thiboutot

Ebook - Enthralling, sexy, musical and artistic, Minnie is a character sure to find a place in the annals of literary heroines.
In this captivating novel by Huguette Thiboutot, we follow the adventures of a divorced grandmother as she bridges the gap between Innocence and Experience, with an open heart and a mind full of hope. As she seeks out the best in the characters she meets along the road two latter day love — and they certainly are characters! — she finds the best in herself, and the strength to face life’s challenges head-on. Minnie doesn’t run from adversity, rather she runs toward it with the conquering heart of a lioness.
How it all plays out is revealed in a series of mystical revelations in the office of a gifted psychic, a talented seer who is able to conjure giants of creativity from Mozart to Da Vinci culminating with an invitation to dance with Gauguin in an amazing dialog.
Yet the question remains: Will Minnie’s tender heart be broken or will love conquer all?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387382552

Book preview

Minnie of the Golden West - A Winter of Surprises

Huguette Thiboutot – Resume

Minnie of the Golden West has been published in French by Les éditions Persée, Paris, under the title: Minnie au Far West. Quel hiver! (ISBN 978-2-8231-1986-2), 2017

Copyrights

Huguette Thiboutot

www.en.huguettethiboutot.com

Cover :  On the Beach, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18,

Santa Monica, March 2014

Minnie of the Golden West – A Winter of Surprises

ISBN 978-1-387-38255-2

Visit our website :

www.en.huguettethiboutot.com

Contact :

[e-mail]

Minnie of the Golden West - A Winter of Surprises

Huguette Thiboutot

Novel

2017

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

My inspiration for Minnie, the heroine of this novel, is Puccini’s opera La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West.) Minnie takes us to Montréal, Los Angeles and, in between, to New York City. Minnie is a famous musician, unknown painter, and assiduous author. She lives passionately. Her life explodes: Minnie shines! The universe itself isn’t big enough to hold all that Minnie has to offer. She exhibits her artwork in New York City for enjoyment. Recognition as a visual artist isn’t her goal. After all, she is already known on five continents as a concert pianist! What painting does afford Minnie is the luxury of anonymity. She finds it exhilarating to start something new from scratch, and alone. Practicing three art forms at once, however, will lead to surprises for Minnie. Without warning, love’s embers ignite anew for her: Minnie lives!

April 26, 2014

Dedicated to: Jo, Diane, Lambert, Jean-Philippe,

Kathy and Ron, Michelle, Vera, Louise,

my sisters, Francine, Bibiane,

and Céline, and Mr. C.

I am grateful to Francine, Suzanne, and Louise

for their invaluable assistance.

"I’ll be up; I’ll be down. Now and then.

Feeling high; feeling low. Now and then.

And I’ll fly, and I’ll fall. Now and then.

Just how high, just how low, I don’t know.

But for sure I’m alive — this I know

— and alive,

I shine!"

— from I Can Shine

by Lambert

Foreword

By Victor Bennett Forbes

When I first came upon the intertwined characters of Huguette Thiboutot and her alter-ego Minnie, I was immediately drawn in to the story of a woman of a certain age who, in the immortal words of Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, is …never too old to Rock'n'Roll if you're too young to die. Minnie is the idealistic, Romantic and romantic heroine of this novel. She is an enthusiastic liver and lover of life — admired, rebuked, charming and charmed. Even her family is somewhat prudish and she becomes disillusioned with their views as they ridicule her personal choices, her quest for love…even a perfect love. Conform or be destroyed they seem to tell her and she clearly understands this. Yet, she opts to brake the shackles and gain her independence, whether briefly or in permanence we are not made certain. She realizes that the ones she loves cannot be changed by her and redirects her energies into saving her very soul, be it through Romantic love, lust or simply a desire to find her higher purpose in life. Stay awake — the buzzards are coming.

Her journey to self-realization begins in earnest after a liberating divorce from a stifling husband who still, in his way, loves her. Although she is a highly regarded concert pianist with great success on the concert circuit, she opts for a brazen career change when she is chosen to exhibit her paintings at a well-known New York City art gallery. The reaction to her work is uniformly positive and the positivity of her friends and family serves as launching pad to Minnie’s further adventures on the West coast in the beautiful sunshine of California. The Santa Monica pier becomes the background for her dual love affairs, of which only one is consummated and as far as Minnie is concerned, it is the wrong one though by her descriptive narrative and deep internal probing, she could be wrong. Her family is not supportive and her back and forth-ing between the two men, compounded with her somewhat risky behaviour, provides the drama and suspense as her love story unfolds. By far the more sympathetic gentleman is the cannabis-consuming Vietnam vet who is basically a street person, but with a great heart for Minnie, to whom he declares his great love. His competitor is a far less sympathetic character ­— a successful photographer with a Hollywood clientele who takes a shine to Minnie (and her money) and spends the next 100 pages reeling her in and letting her go as if she is a fish on the line. While Minnie struggles through the ramifications of her need for this man to love her, the question is not if, but when will she succumb to her own carnal desires and allows this big love to find its way into the picture.

Fluctuating between maiden in distress to modern woman of strength and power, the outcome keeps us engaged while we cheer on Minnie as she fights her internal battles in a near operatic schematic. We ultimately find her in a fortune teller’s office in which the giants of art and creativity parade before her, astrally projected into the light of day. Minnie learns that nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. There must be time, she understands, even though time is short. Under this banner she fervently desires to live some life before she goes, as she hears her Santa Monica reggae band play often on the pier. It’s a song called Party Time and Leroy Siobbles words ring as true as those of Epictetus: Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

As Minnie ventures into the unknown she learns that long is the road from conception to completion as well as the notion that true love is hard to find. Minnie fearlessly walks her walk, taking such element as the basic need of a human being to love and be loved as her primary motif along for the journey only to learn that her life is a dance. Sometimes you can choose your partners and there are times you are the chosen one. In this case, Minnie somberly and triumphantly enters a sphere of eternity and the star of her show, it turns out, is none other than Minnie’s counterpart from another time: Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin, the pastoral primitivist known for depicting life as it ought to be. It is a triumph for the pianist/painter/author who is at once Minnie of The Far West and Huguette of The North Land — brazen, polished, fulfilled, unconquerable bloody but unbowed. I look forward to the sequel!

Prologue

It all begins one January evening in Santa Monica. After a dreary period of calm and desolation, my head, my thoughts — indeed my very body explode! Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is playing at full volume. A Paris Opera production of Puccini’s The Girl of the Golden West is up and playing on my computer screen. Minnie, the opera’s heroine, becomes my heroine. I’ve just read Nathalie Petrowsky’s article about Alain Lefèvre’s solo performance with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal at Carnegie Hall. The stage is set; the play begins. For hours now, I write about Minnie: Minnie incandescent; Minnie her body burning with desire; exhilarated Minnie, sublime light shining from her inspired mind. Yet, have I made Minnie fly too high, too far? Will the harsh rays of the sun burn her tender wings to a crisp, as they did those of Icarus?

I let you be the judge.

Huguette Thiboutot

Minnie the Pianist

Minnie will perform at Carnegie Hall with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under the baton of Ken Hirano this evening. She has signed her contract as a guest pianist. She must go on. The afternoon’s rehearsal was magnificent, every musician in the orchestra applauding her. Backstage now, she implores Zoran:

— "Please! Come for me backstage after Rhapsody in Blue?"

Minnie anticipates that she’ll hardly be able to stand upright by then. Zoran mumbles,

— What can I do. What do you expect from me.

Minnie hasn’t time to answer as the stage manager has gotten hold of her and propelled her out under the lights. All the usual members of the Quebec delegation nestle in the front row; it is not they, however, but her grandson, son, daughter-in-law, and daughter who capture her attention. Her family’s presence fills her with happiness. Zoran is there as well, nearby. Flawless technique pulls Minnie back from the brink of disaster. Despite several false notes, her performance bears the imprimatur of brilliance. The aura of her passion wafts out over every member of her audience to awaken their passion in turn.

After playing her last chord, with breath quickened and smile bright, Minnie closes her eyes. She is exhilarated, radiant. A tsunami of applause sweeps over her. Instinctively, she rises to stand firmly beside the Steinway where Ken Hirano soon joins her.

By the time her grandson Jordan walks onto the stage carrying a bouquet of flowers, the applause is thunderous. Carnegie Hall vibrates. Minnie snuggles into Jordan's arms. Now she can see Zoran from the corner of her eye. She waves to him. Ken Hirano leads Minnie backstage. She must return for another bow. The conductor takes her firmly by the elbow. They take the first bow, then another and another. Each time she steps offstage, Zoran gathers her up in his arms. Each time, Ken Hirano leads her back on stage.

Camera shutters crackle. Flashbulbs go off. Minnie’s children have waited for her in a limousine. Zoran sees her into the back seat beside them, then turns and leaves. She shouts:

— "Zoraaaan!"

Minnie the Fine Artist Readies an Exhibition

On the same day a year earlier, Minnie is about to exhibit at Agora Gallery in Manhattan’s westside district of Chelsea that is home to dozens of contemporary art galleries. A well-known pianist renowned for her interpretations of Gershwin, she is daring to venture into the art world. From within the colourful and exclusive world known only to visual artists, she sees the great city that never sleeps in a new light. The galleries of New York do indeed give their stamp of approval to the world's most influential art movements, as did those of Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. Minnie has come here on an exploratory footing — and what a world to explore!

Months earlier, Minnie’s Odyssey gets slowly but surely underway as she visits the world’s art galleries online, a pastime that helps her to manage the solitude and pain she feels in the aftermath of her divorce. After long hours of practice in which she entrusts her pain to her piano, followed by relaxing painting sessions in which her brushes express her irrepressible love of life in vibrant colors on canvas, Minnie feels soothed at last. Then, sitting at her computer, she resumes her virtual tours of art galleries. One day, she notices that she often visits Agora Gallery, NYC. Agora begins to make an impression on her just as a timid yet irrepressible sense of freedom takes shape within her. On her inner horizon, the enormous space left gaping by the divorce begins to open up, crying out to be filled with new life. From within this space, she feels new strength rising, imperious. And so it is that Minnie takes her first steps toward exhibiting in New York City. She tells herself that, sitting safely at home as she is, she can’t be risking much. And so, heart pounding, she throws herself into preparing her application form, thinking all the while, Even if the answer is ‘no,’ at least I will have tried. She soon sets her winged application free to fly to its destination through the World Wide Web.

Early in July, while Minnie is showing an impressive computer image to two artist friend couples visiting for afternoon tea, she receives an email from Agora Gallery:

From: [e-mail]

Subject: Qualify

Date: July 5, 2012 18:53:27 EST

To: [e-mail]

Dear Minnie,

With respect to your color-saturated, in-perpetual-motion, compelling paintings, I am pleased to inform you that your distinctive artworks qualify for Agora Gallery representation.

In regard to your work, I feel that your stylistic expression will resonate well at Agora Gallery in New York City, the most significant art district in the world.

Best regards,

Angela Di Bello, Director, Agora Gallery,

Editor-in-Chief, ARTisSpectrum

http://www.agora-gallery.com

"Qualify"! The magical word sparkles bright like a diamond. While her heart nearly leaps out of her chest for joy, Minnie is also caught in crosscurrents of anxiety and curiosity swirling about in her head. Astonished, impressed and excited, her friends support and encourage her. Long, heartfelt accolades drift in from all sides.

Minnie’s friends plan to travel together to attend the New York opening: Yet another great place to see! says Rita. Minnie jumps on the phone to spread the exciting news even further afield. So much is underway!

A few weeks later, Minnie is returning light-hearted and smiling from a long walk in her green and flowering Montréal neighbourhood of Outremont. As she strolls up her street, Rue Bernard, she receives a cell-phone call from Angela, the director of Agora Gallery. Surprised, Minnie stops dead in her tracks. She is so impressed that she feels paralyzed, standing as she does at attention in the middle of the street, oblivious to the amused passers-by who glance at her sideways and noisy children who run around her at play. She listens attentively to the voice on the line speaking English, for fear of misunderstanding points that the New Yorker may make.

Angela begins by explaining that she is aware of the pianist's busy schedule. She then surprises Minnie by announcing that she wants the exhibition to begin almost immediately, in November. So far, Minnie has taken it that she had time on her side. The gallery said that the wait for an exhibition could be from two to three years. The opening will be on December 5th, continues Angela. Minnie's cheeks are on fire. A single word comes to mind with which to end the call: "Exciting! Entering the lobby of her building shortly after and seeing the security guard at the front desk, she repeats exciting!" in the same exalted tone she used with Angela. The security guard knows her well. She tells him her great news. He congratulates her heartily.

In 2013, Agora Gallery is run by a group of eight women, each one nicer than the last. They share the many tasks involved in keeping their international gallery top-of-the-line without losing touch with the human side of their artists’ New York adventures. They have a keen eye for judging the professional value of artwork and know how to surround their chosen artists with warmth and care.

Minnie, meanwhile, is running on adrenaline. Day after day, she applies herself to the many tasks required for the success of her exhibition: registering her paintings, arranging for their transportation, and preparing customs forms. She speaks to her Trans-Art mover Eddie so often that they become friends. One morning, after Eddie solves a seemingly intractable problem, Minnie spontaneously exclaims:

— If you were close by right now, I’d kiss you!

He laughs, tossing back,

— "I can pick up a kiss too!"

Jo, a savvy and priceless friend, helps Minnie to prepare and send out her CV, photos, and artist’s process statement.

Jo, the creative videographer, Lambert, the experienced musician, and Minnie, the tireless artist, join forces. The triumvirate thus born creates the most amazing info-video ever. With the impactful images that Jo develops, Minnie’s paintings are shown all over Times Square’s gigantic, illuminated advertising billboards. A visual image for the exhibition opening comes together as well: atop a big apple is Minnie’s painting Back to the Nest, its central figure skillfully blended into an image of the Statue of Liberty holding her burning torch aloft. Written text dances to Lambert’s music along New York’s skyline. The melody reaches maximum pitch by rising a tone a minute. Minnie the artist is overwhelmed by emotion as she watches the video, earphones plugged in to catch every nuance of the music. Her family and friends simply cannot believe what they see happening; meanwhile, fans of Minnie the pianist are amazed at the sight of so many paintings:

But how, they keep asking, did you find the time to paint so many of them?

Agora Gallery, NYC