Craig Pursley

Portrait of Emily Hutchins Craig Pursley

A portrait of a beautiful young woman hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts with a story to tell. Through the journals, diaries and letters of the subject and the artist who painted her, the lives and love they shared come to life in Civil War-era New England. These writings, kept secret for over a hundred years, not only reveal the difficulties of finding any kind of relationship with each other, they also show how society, a well-respected rival and even family members sometimes strove to keep them apart. And deep in those personal papers, a brutal murder also comes to light. A story full of life, kindness, humor, rage, faith and temptation, courage and cowardice, bitterness and forgiveness, it eventually shows the potential value of a human life.