{"product_id":"opening-night-sara-baume-9780374618780","title":"Opening Night: A Story of Art and Friendship","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAs two women, both artists living and working along the coast of Ireland, come to know each \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eother, we witness a profound meditation on friendship, mortality, creation, the everyday and \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ethe sublime.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOne day, Sara Baume attended the closing party of an exhibition in West Cork. She fell under the spell of two small paintings. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMollie Douthit of Grand Forks, North Dakota, was living and working, alone, in a cabin down an overgrown lane only a few miles away. Sara and Mollie made a quick start at friendship. They discovered much in common--a devotion to the daily rituals of their artistic practices, nature, walks, soup, solitude, grandmothers. They made a pact: every month, no matter the weather, they would swim in the Atlantic. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMollie was preparing for a new exhibition, building a series of paintings from her memories of a house on a Minnesota lake, one that had belonged to her grandparents when she was a child. She asked Sara to write the accompanying text. The pictures privileged impression over reality, rummaging in the vast, specific, slippery landscape of Mollie's mind. Sara set herself the challenge of writing a book that might work in the same way, portraying a series of events from memory while simultaneously insisting on the freedom to misremember, subtract, and embellish. Soon, though, Sara and Mollie encountered a tumult of change. Mysterious pain, long-distance love, lost family, the fear of failure: these and other realities barged into their story. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eUnusual in its intimacy, scope, and emphasis on the lives and practices of two unknown contemporary artists, \u003ci\u003eOpening Night\u003c\/i\u003e is nearly mystical in its exploration of what connects us to the past, the sublime, each other, and our selves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Sara Baume\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 037461878X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780374618780\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Farrar, Straus and Giroux\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/01\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.00lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.25h x 5.38w x 1.00d","brand":"Sara Baume","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48623553708287,"sku":"9780374618780","price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_82e71427-f4c9-4e3b-a570-7d8f34b88659.jpg?v=1780433220","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/opening-night-sara-baume-9780374618780","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}