Alchemy of a Blackbird

A Novel

By: Claire McMillan

Narrated by: Aida Reluzco, Zac Aleman, Raquel Beattie, Carlotta Brentan, Erin deWard, Ella Lynch

Named a Best Book of 2023 by Book Riot

For fans of The Age of Light and Z comes a “beguiling novel of artistic ambition, perseverance, and friendship” (Katy Hays, New York Times bestselling author) based on the true story of the 20th-century painters and tarot devotees Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington.

In this “unforgettable adventure, and one you don’t want to miss” (Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author), painter Remedios Varo and her lover, poet Benjamin Peret escape the Nazis by fleeing Paris and arriving at a safe house for artists on the Rivieria.

Along with Max Ernst, Peggy Guggenheim, and others, the two anxiously wait for exit papers.

As the months pass, Remedios begins to sense that the others don’t see her as a fellow artist; they have cast her in the stifling role of a surrealist ideal: the beautiful innocent. She finds refuge in a mysterious bookshop, where she stumbles into a world of occult learning and intensifies an esoteric practice in the tarot that helps her light the bright fire of her creative genius.

When travel documents come through, Remedios and Benjamin flee to Mexico where she is reunited with friend and fellow painter Leonora Carrington. Together, the women tap into their creativity, stake their independence, and each find their true loves. But it is the tarot that enables them to access the transcendent that lies on the other side of consciousness and to become the truest Surrealists of all.

Critic reviews

"Six narrators add unique layers to this well-researched novel featuring Surrealist artist Remedios Varo, a refugee who is fleeing Europe during WWII. Each narrator takes on a different point of view. With her warm tone and rich timbre, Aida Reluzco sets a captivating mood in the chapters involving Remedios. Between each chapter, Erin deWard delivers a mesmerizing Tarot card reading that introduces the upcoming principal character. The narrators adopt the native accents of the various expatriate painters and art collectors who make up the novel. The overall effect of the Tarot card readings, myriad perspectives, and accents, along with Reluzco’s rendering of Remedios, is positively entrancing."

Lives up to its alchemical title

This lyrical imagining of Varos’s life captivated and moved me. Smoothly dips into different characters’ points of view and allows the tarot to illuminate them.