Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death by Laura Cumming is a beautifully illustrated new memoir of a life in art, a father and daughter, and what a shared love of a painting can come to mean.

Longlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, judge Anne Sebba had this to say about the book: ‘I love this book because of the way she intertwines a subtle and tender love of her father with a deep understanding of Dutch art.’

To find out more about the book we spoke to Laura about her writing, research and current reads.

Describe your book in one sentence as if you were telling a friend.

Thunderclap is a memoir about sudden revelations – falling in love, seeing a place, a person, a painting for the first time – and about sudden deaths, specifically those of two artists I love, my father, and the Dutch painter Carel Fabritius who died in a notorious explosion known as the Delft Thunderclap.

Did you have any revelation moments when writing your book? When the narrative and your objectives all fell into place?

When I discovered what happened to the wife and children of Carel Fabritius (who painted The Goldfinch, and who is very much the hero of the Dutch painters in my book) I felt I truly understood why and how he stopped painting.

What is the one thing you’d like a reader to take away from reading your book?

Look closely, keep looking and love the incredible gift of being able to see the world around you through your own eyes, but also those of artists.

Which other female non-fiction writers inspire you and why? Any particular title?

I love the non-fiction writing of a lot of novelists – Anita Brookner, Joan Didion, Muriel Spark, Maria Stepanova – and of poets and artists such as Lavinia Greenlaw and Celia Paul. I read Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain quite often for the sheer beauty of it.

What is the best piece of writing advice you have ever received?

Keep at it.

What book is currently on your nightstand?

Zadie Smith’s The Fraud.