Daily Bookmark: “Feast Your Eyes” is a moving novel about being both an artist and a mom

Every aspiring painter, writer or musician knows that pursuing a career in the arts takes a level of bone-deep dedication that not every profession requires. Maybe only one other life pursuit asks for that degree of personal submission — motherhood. In “Feast Your Eyes,” on sale now from Simon & Schuster, Myla Goldberg evokes the dual allegiances to parenting and creativity in vivid detail and with great heart. 

Photographer Lillian Preston bills herself as “America’s Worst Mother, America’s Bravest Mother, America’s Worst Photographer, or America’s Greatest Photographer,” depending on her mood. She’s been in love with taking pictures since her high school photo club, and opts for an artist’s life in New York City over the expectation of marriage, despite having a young daughter in the year 1955. “Feast Your Eyes” is a Lillian’s story told through her daughter’s eyes, as she learns that parenting well means maintaining her own identity and respecting her own ambitions. 

Myla Goldberg is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel “Bee Season,” which was adapted into a 2005 film. She lives in Brooklyn.

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