by James Morgan
Reviewed by Terrance Gelenter

At an age when most Americans are nervously trying to figure out how to juggle social security and their diminished retirement income when their working life eventually comes to an end author James Morgan and his wife put their lovingly restored home on the market and took off for France to follow in the footsteps of Matisse and create a new life.

For Morgan, an author who always dreamed of painting, Matisse was an inspiration both for his work and for the way that he shed the shackles of middle class conformity and artistic onventions to follow his inspiration.

After arriving in Paris the Morgan's odyssey takes them north to the Picardy of Matisse's youth, then back to Paris to absorb Matisse's Paris years, to Belle-Ile on the Brittany coast, a long pause at Collouire in the Pyrenées, on a ferry to Corsica, magical Morocco and finally Nice, to peer through the windows of Matisse's apartment and see the incredibly sunlit blue of the Mediterranean.

Chasing Matisse is at once a mini-memoir, travel guide and biography with a glimpse of the creative mind at work-Matisse's and Morgan's. Pour that pastis!