Gabriele

A May 2025 Indie Next List Great Read

"Gabriele?is a revealing, heartrending biographical novel about a complicated woman whose imprint on art history is undeniable."--Foreword Reviews

What if revolutions in art and society began with a revolution in love?

Written by Anne Berest (The Postcard) and her sister, Claire Berest, Gabriele is a bold, immersive "true novel" about desire, creativity, and the radical reimagining of how to live.

Paris, 1908. At the height of the Belle Epoque, Gabriele Buffet--a brilliant young musician fresh out of Europe's most elite conservatory--meets Francis Picabia, a charismatic and explosive Spanish painter. Their intense love affair plunges them into a Paris alive with artistic experimentation and social rebellion. Soon after, Gabriele meets Marcel Duchamp--younger than Picabia and Gabriele, brilliant, and enigmatic--and before long the three have embarked on a passionate and unconventional relationship that will define their personal stories--and in the process reshape modern art.

As Europe moves from exuberance to upheaval, and World War I looms, Gabriele, Francis Picabia, and Marcel Duchamp and their milieu challenge every convention: about marriage, sexuality, authorship, and artistic freedom. Moving between Paris, New York, Zurich, Berlin, Barcelona, London, and Saint-Tropez, the novel asks a question that feels urgently contemporary: can new ways of loving and being in the world create new ways of thinking?

At once intimate and sweeping, Gabriele restores a pioneering woman to the center of a story long told through men, inviting readers to reconsider genius, collaboration, and the invisible labor behind cultural revolutions.