Blood Water Paint

A harrowing and empowering story of strength and persistence in the aftermath of sexual assault, written in stunning verse and based on the life of seventeenth-century painter Artemisia Gentileschi.

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • A WILLIAM C. MORRIS DEBUT AWARD FINALIST • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE CENTURY

"Haunting . . . teems with raw emotion . . . deftly captures the experience of learning to behave in a male-driven society and then breaking outside of it."—The New Yorker

He will not consume
my every thought.
I am a painter.
I will paint.

I will show you
what a woman can do.

After her mother died when she just twelve, Artemisia Gentileschi had a stark choice to make: a life as a nun in a convent, or a life grinding pigment for her father's paint.

She chose paint.

By the time she was seventeen, Artemisia did more than grind pigment. She was one of Rome's most talented painters, even if no one knew her name. But Rome in 1610 was a city where men took what they wanted from women, and in the aftermath of rape, Artemisia faced another terrible choice: a life of silence or a life of truth, no matter the cost.

Joy McCullough's bold novel in verse is a portrait of an artist as a young woman, filled with the soaring highs of creative inspiration and the devastating setbacks of a system built to break her. McCullough weaves Artemisia's heartbreaking story with those of ancient heroines Susanna and Judith, who become not only the subjects of two of Artemisia's most famous paintings, but also sources of strength as she battles to paint a woman's timeless truth in the face of unspeakable and all-too-familiar violence.