“A Moment in Time. A happy summer Saturday after the War, in the place I love most in the world. May it remain like this forever, sans one thing…”

If you’ve grown weary of reading the popular crap that today’s big publishers push as good writing, author Bobby Underwood provides balm for your soul.
In ATELIER, as in all of his many wonderful novels and stories, Underwood gives us an uplifting dose of hope and escape from the backwards and upside-down world in which we now find ourselves.
Dip into the refreshing waters of a time and place before the world changed; when values meant something; when the American dream and patriotism was celebrated, and when we recognized and knew the importance of beauty, love, and hard work.
ATELIER is something really special. It is a mysterious tale with an ethereal element that is so lovely and inviting, it soothes the soul.
At the center of the story is a painting, “A Moment in Time”. It was created by a wonderful woman artist in 1946. When the narrator, Mike Grant first sees the painting in the present day, it opens up a whole new world for him.

“The painting was so vibrant and alive with summertime that it seemed to fill the entire room with light. It depicted a small town on a summer day, and the people going about various tasks and activities. Over here was a picnic and happy children playing games, over there a postman delivering letters and chatting with a woman in curlers who was touching her hair in a way that suggested she was quite fond of the postman. Two boys in overalls and a young girl in a gingham dress were fishing by a stream beneath a big oak tree. A country church stood quietly at the end of town as if watching over all the people who would surely be sitting in its pews come Sunday morning.”

At the time I picked up this treasure, I was in a fairly depressed state of mind. As I began to read and sail across these calming pages, my mood changed from melancholy to joy.
As the great novelist Robert Nathan once said,
“What I really want is to give comfort to people in this wilderness of death and trouble. And to myself, too. So, when I can, I take the poison and hate out of my books.”

In the same vein as Nathan’s classics, PORTRAIT OF JENNIE and THE BISHOP’S WIFE, Bobby Underwood carries on the Nathan tradition. He gives us a world where good always wins, the way it was meant to.
This is a book everyone should read, especially those weary with the insanity and depravity of the 21st century.
If you are fortunate enough to read this book, make sure you also read Underwood’s GROVER’S CREEK. It’s really similar in style and feel, and a treasure all its own. ( )