I Am Not Your Eve

<p><em>I Am Not Your Eve</em> is the story of Teha''amana, Tahitian muse and child-bride to the painter Paul Gauguin. She shares her thougths as he works on one of his masterpieces, The Spirit of The Dead Keeps Watch, a work so important to Gauguin that it haunts his later self-portrait. As Teha''amana tells her story, other voices of the island rise: Hina goddess of the moon, a lizard watching from the eaves, Gauguin''s mask of Teha''amana carved from one of the trees.</p><p>Woven in are the origin myths that cradled Polynesia before French colonists brought the Christian faith. Distant diary entries by Gauguin''s daughter Aline - the same age as her father''s new ''wife'' - recall the other hemisphere of his life. This is the novel that gives Teha''amana a voice; one that travels with the myths and legends of the island, across history and asks to be heard.</p>