Pas de deux
The Lives of the Muses by Francine Prose reveals that inspiring an artist is a complicated and mostly unenviable task, says Kathryn Hughes for The Guardian

You don't have to get far into Francine Prose's account of what it means to be a muse to realise that there are certain sine qua non requirements for the job. First, you must be beautiful. Not just nice-looking, but so stunning that women sulk and men stare when you walk down the street (Lee Miller was picked off the sidewalk by Mr Condé Nast himself, while Lizzie Siddal's hair had its own cohort of admirers, never mind the rest of her).

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