Shelf Life

"La Japonaise (Camille Monet in Japanese Costume)" by Claude Monet. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

Top writers' previews
Three widely acclaimed writers with novels coming out this fall will offer previews at upcoming readings in Chestnut Hill.

Julia Glass will read from "I See You Everywhere" (Pantheon), due out in October, at 7:30 tonight at Pine Manor College. In her new book, Glass, winner of the 2002 National Book Award for "Three Junes," charts the relationship between two sisters over 25 years.

Dennis Lehane, a master of the crime thriller, turns to historical fiction for "The Given Day" (Morrow), his epic based on the 1919 police strike in Boston, due out in September. He will read from it on Saturday and on July 11.

On July 16, Roland Merullo, who has written widely about his roots in Revere, will read from "American Savior" (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill), about a presidential candidate with a rather unusual pedigree. Details at www.pmc.edu.

Turning to crime
Raffi Yessayan has just published his first crime novel, "Eight in the Box" (Ballantine). Yessayan, a former assistant district attorney in Boston and chief prosecutor of the Gang Unit, is now in private practice. The title, by the way, is lawyer-speak for a jury trial.

A tribute to Paley
Over the years, Grace Paley frequently taught at an annual writing workshop for veterans, peace activists, and war refugees. Last June the two-week workshop at the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at the University of Massachusetts at Boston celebrated its 20th year. And Paley was again a member of the faculty, two months before she died at her home in Vermont.

On Tuesday, the Joiner Center will pay tribute to Paley with a reading of her poetry at 7 p.m. at the Pierre Menard Gallery, 10 Arrow St., Cambridge. Paley's daughter Nora will be joined by about a dozen poets.

Married to the masters
Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, and Auguste Rodin were among a generation of French artists who turned away from traditional subjects such as the Bible and painted scenes from everyday life. In doing so, they immortalized their wives: the regal figure of Cezanne's wife, Hortense Fiquet, perched on a red armchair; a playful Camille Doncieux - Monet's wife - in a kimono, fan in hand; the troubled visage of Rodin's wife, Rose Beuret.

In a new book, "Hidden in the Shadow of the Master: The Model-Wives of Cezanne, Monet, & Rodin" (Yale University), art historian Ruth Butler reports that the women's lives were "difficult and lonely - more unhappy than not." Each woman met her husband-to-be on the streets of Paris when he asked her to model for him. Each bore him a son before marriage. Money was a struggle for all three couples early on, and the challenges of living with a striving genius never ended, according to Butler, professor emerita at UMass-Boston.

Coming out