READERS GUIDE

Questions and Topics for Discussion

INTRODUCTION

Before she introduced the world to Griet, the heroine of her New York Times bestselling novel Girl With a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier wrote another book, never published in the United States. “A beautiful story shot with vivid colors,” (The Times, London) The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page.

The Virgin Blue, Tracy Chevalier transports us back to 16th-century France during the development of the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent persecution of the Huguenotsfollowers of John Calvin’s preaching of the “Truth.” Isabelle du Moulin—called “La Rousse” for her copper-colored hair—is tormented and shunned by her hardworking, God-fearing Huguenot community, suspicious of her lingering adoration for the Virgin Mary, her skills at midwifery, her mysterious association with wild wolves, and her fiery red hair. Pregnant with an illegitimate child, Isabelle marries above her station—into the severe Tournier family, outwardly stoic followers of the Truth who covertly adhere to older, pagan superstitions.

More than four centuries later, Ella Turner, an American, and her husband Rick move to a small town in France. While in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family. Village life turns out to be less than idyllic when dreams of a disturbing color blue get between her and her plans. Her nightmares of the color blue, and her father’s suggestion, lead Ella investigate her French Huguenot ancestry, trace their flight into Switzerland following the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and unearth the sinister secret the family has buried for four hundred years. However, this task is not an easy one. Ella, knowing little more than her family’s original surname, Tournier, begins her research at a local library, finding only a negligible amount of information on her ancestry. During her quest, she befriends Jean Paul—a dark, handsome, Byronic librarian, whose magnetism becomes increasingly difficult to resist—and discovers too many parallels with the past to dismiss as coincidence. The one afternoon, Ella discovers her brown hair inexplicably begun to turn red…

Alternating between the stories of Ella and Isabelle, The Virgin Blue is a haunting tale of ancestral legacies set against a dazzlingly descriptive portrait of French provincial life today, as well as of the hardships—and harsh beauty—of life in the sixteenth century.

Tracy Chevalier is the New York Times bestselling author of Girl With A Pearl Earring and Falling Angels(both available in Plume editions). Born and raised in Washington, D.C., she earned her undergraduate degree from Oberlin College in Ohio and holds a graduate degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. She lives in London with her husband and son.

What kind of research did you do for this book?

I read a lot about the growth of Protestantism in the 16th century and the plight of the French Huguenots, who were forced to flee in two waves from France—after 1572 and after 1685. Then I spent a few weeks in southern France, finding a town for Ella to live in, wandering in the mountains of the Cevennes, searching for Nicolas Tournier’s paintings in Toulouse, and also for traces of my own family in the archives of the Cevennes. I even had a raucous evening in the jazz bar where Jean-Paul takes Ella—though alas, I found no handsome piano player.

What inspired you to set the setting for The Virgin Blue?

My Chevalier ancestors are from Moutier in Switzerland—in fact my father was born there and I still have relatives in the area. The family story is that we are Huguenots originally from the Cevennes, so I thought I would set the story there, even if the story is not actually about the Chevaliers. I found no trace of them in the Cevennes, in fact, but I loved the area.

Is the character of Jean Paul based on anyone you have known?

Ha! No, just the usual fantasy of the tall dark stranger. Actually I made him look like a Spanish friend of a friend, a man I only met once very briefly. I often do that—I will borrow characteristics and looks from people I don’t know very well—not from close friends.

Do you identify with either Isabelle or Ella?

Both, I would say; though I don’t have an obsession with the Virgin Mary! (I do love the color blue.) I also feel I’ve grown a lot since writing this book, and am much more comfortable living as a foreigner in England than Ella is living in France. But I understand their feeling of otherness, of standing apart from the societies they live in.

What are you working on now?

I’ve just finished a novel set in 15th-century Paris and Brussels, about a set of medieval tapestries, called The Lady and the Unicorn. So it’s back to France again.