Peggy: A Novel
By Rebecca Godfrey with Leslie Jamison
Published 2024
Read Dec 2025
This book is a fictional biography of Peggy Guggenheim, whom Wikipedia describes as “an American art collector, bohemian, and socialite” (1). She was born in 1898 to Benjamin and Florette (ne Segilman) Guggenheim. Florette Segilman brought an inherited fortune to the union. Benjamin’s fortune was smaller and truncated due to his death on the Titanic while with his mistress. Peggy Guggenheim is known for her keen eye for modern art talent and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, an art museum in Venice. At the museum’s core is the collection she personally acquired between 1938 and 1946 and contains modern works from American and European artists.
But if you’re seeking a book about the collection or details of its acquisition and housing, this is not the book for you. Rebecca Godfrey’s focus is on the inner life of Peggy Guggenheim from her father’s death to her early 40’s. Although Godfrey spent countless hours researching Peggy during the ten years she spent on this book, she appropriately calls this a novel as she has fictionalized the details so that she can bring forth the feelings she came to intuit from this extensive research. Much time is spent on Peggy’s marriage to the abusive but creative Laurence Vail, known as the King of Bohemia in Paris. Peggy had two children with this husband. We learn about a potential view Peggy had on the difficult relationships she had with her husband and her children.
Rebecca Godfrey was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and succumbed to the disease before the book was finished. She asked her friend and colleague, Leslie Jamison, to finish the book for her. She didn’t want the book published in an incomplete state. As for several of the reviewers, the place where Rebecca left off and Leslie picked up is not obvious to this reader. Godfrey’s extensive notes and plans for the book allowed Jamison to finish the book. In addition, Jamison indicated, in interviews about this unique situation, that she needed to really get into Peggy herself to do the job she was requested to do and did extensive work herself to do this. She seems to have accomplished goal this well.
This reader was not familiar with Peggy Guggenheim prior to reading this novel. This sort of fictionalization of a life is not the type of book to which this reader is attracted. This reader read the book to enable her participation in a book discussion at the local library. The librarian facilitating the discussion is a huge fan of Peggy Guggenheim. The discussion appropriately reminded participants about the timeframe of this book—the very early part of the 1900’s- and not to judge Peggy according to current views of marriage and parenthood and versus the current status of women in society. The librarian’s enthusiasm for the character, the discussion about the authors’ intention, and the appropriate grounding of the picture presented of Peggy against the cultural mores of the time and her position in society enabled this reader to develop an appreciation both for the book and for its subject. The power of a book discussion was demonstrated once again.
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