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- The plot of a crime novel due out in June revolves around one of Frida's most controversial work
The plot of a crime novel due out in June revolves around one of Frida's most controversial work
24 May 2026
Frida's painting titled "The Suicide of Dorothy Hale", 1938 was commissioned by Clare Boothe Luce as a gift for Hale's grieving mother. It is a highly controversial work that depicts the socialite’s fatal plunge from a New York skyscraper in cinematic details.
In the book "The End of the Vodka" by Oscar de Muriel Dorothy Hale - a showgirl who later became a socialite - falls from a Manhattan skyscraper in 1938. Frida Kahlo is commissioned to create a memorial portrait by her friend Clare Boothe Luce, a writer, diplomat, and emerging political figure.
When Clare meets the Duchess of Windsor in Paris while reporting from Europe several months later, she starts to wonder what actually transpired that evening. Separated from Diego Rivera, Frida struggles with ambition, betrayal, and the demands of her art in New York. She gets closer to the truth as she works on the painting that will turn out to be one of her most disturbing.
A real-life mystery lies at the center of this book: was Dorothy Hale's death an act of despair or something much more sinister, connected to the power struggles reshaping the contemporary world?
