In this amazing new novel by the author of The Other Alcott, we see the world of Dorothea Lange, creator of the most iconic photographs of twentieth-century America, wife, mother, lover, and truth teller.
In 1918, twenty-two-year-old Dorothea Nutzhorn arrives in bohemian San Francisco determined to forge her way on her own terms. Within a year and a half, she's renamed herself Dorothea Lange and is the toast of the Bay Area as the owner of the city's most prestigious and stylish portrait studio and wife of the talented but volatile painter, Maynard Dixon.
By the early 1930s, as America's economy collapses and her marriage founders, she must find a way to support her two young sons single-handedly. Determined to find humanity in places where most chose to look the other way, she takes to the road and exposes the horrific conditions of America's poor. When the nation enters the Second World War, Dorothea must confront another injustice and decide how far she's willing to fight. At a time when women are supposed to keep home fires burning, Dorothea dares be different, but her choices will come with a steep price.
Set amidst the turmoil of the Great Depression and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, Learning to See follows the life of an ambitious woman and her awakening to art, activism, and what it means to risk everything for love.
