Showing results by author "Bernadette Murphy" in All Categories

What kind of mother gives up her son? Bernadette Murphy grew up the “miracle child” of her immigrant Irish Catholic family, arriving unexpectedly after her mother’s difficulty conceiving and her parents’ adoption of her older brother. Three more siblings followed, and as her once-glamorous mother sank deeper into depression, and her father struggled to support the family, Bernadette was forced to grow up quickly and care for her brothers and sister.

On a dark night in Provence in December 1888 Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear. It is an act that has come to define him. Yet for more than a century biographers and historians seeking definitive facts about what happened that night have been left with more questions than answers. In Van Gogh’s Ear Bernadette Murphy sets out to discover exactly what happened that night in Arles. Why would an artist at the height of his powers commit such a brutal act?