The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro

Its not that often that you come across a book that is just fun to read.  Its interesting and well told, doesn't require changing your mind about anything, you are transported someplace else, and there's no serious violence or controversy to make you cringe.  Its just a great story told by a talented author.  The Art Forger is just that book.

B.A. Shapiro lands us in the cut throat world of the high end art business where talent is king and ego is the name of the game.  We follow Claire, a young struggling artist who has been wronged by the gallery set and is asked  by an influential owner to copy a notorious painting for good money and a one woman show at his Boston gallery.  The painting was one of the 13 stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 in a now infamous and unsolved case where the brazen thieves dressed as police officers broke into the museum in the middle of the night, tied up the guards  and stole $500 million in paintings.  Among the paintings was a Vermeer, two Rembrandts, five Degas drawings, and a Manet.  Claire, who has been copying paintings for an online copy house, has become quite good at copying Degas, and is asked to copy his After the Bath II.  Aiden, the gallery owner assures her that there is no way for her to get in trouble, as he is poised to sell the copy to one of his Mideastern collectors and will return the original to the Gardner.  What follows is an intricate story of art and forgery, complete with detailed painting techniques, dusty archives, secret rooms and the FBI.

What makes this book so much fun is the details.  The story is well crafted and interesting.  Shapiro has really done her homework and understands Claire's world of pigments, chemicals, collectors and ambition.  She has obviously studied the processes that forgers use to copy great old works of art and how they negotiate the art world to be successful.  She certainly knows a whole lot about Degas and his painting techniques, Isabella Gardner and her collection, and the heist that remains perhaps the most famous unsolved art theft in history.  All that detail supports a great story with a likable but somewhat naive character who finds herself plopped right in the middle of a dark and dangerous world of international art forgery.

This book could have been light and trite had a different author had the helm.  I am intrigued with books about art and artists. I've read quite a few, and many come off as simplistic; the starving artist, the powerful gallery owner and the bad guys who are always on the fringes of any market that deals in millions. Without the detail and the insider's view into a mostly closed and interesting world, the story could have been just another art book, but in fact Shapiro made it believable.  She is deft at creating complicated characters that move in unexpected ways. Plot twists engendered great suspense with a big payoff in the end.  Most art books are written about the New York City Art world.  I think an unintended consequence of writing about the Gardner heist is that, for once we're reading about Boston, a new twist on an old theme.

Coincidentally, as I was beginning to read The Art Forger, the news came out that the FBI thinks that they have identified the thieves in the real Gardner Museum heist.  While they won't reveal names at this point, it is thought that they have ties to Whitey Bulger and Boston Irish mob.  Even having identified the criminals, they have yet to actually recover any of the stolen paintings. Thirteen years later, the case is still considered unsolved.

I wouldn't say that The Art Forger was a deep and meaningful novel.  It didn't change my life or tell the great American story, but it did engross and entertain me for a few days.  When I finished it, I turned to my husband and said "Boy was that fun!".  If you're reading for entertainment, then what better way to feel when you read the last page.  Bravo Ms. Shapiro!

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

True Confessions:  I love Barbara Kingsolver.  I love her stories, her characters and her subject matter.  I buy her books in hard copy when they are first released.  Her novel "The Poisonwood Bible" is among my top ten books of all time.  I even loved "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", her collection of essays about the joys of eating close to home and supporting local farms.  I love Barbara Kingsolver.  With that in mind, I'd like to have loved her newest novel, "Flight Behavior" but I really didn't.

When I bought the book I was so excited to read it.  Its about a young mother in the mountains of Virginia, who stumbles upon an environmental disaster waiting to happen.  Monarch butterflies that usually famously overwinter in the mountains of Mexico, suddenly change their roosting place and move to the Virginian mountains instead.  Scientists gather in a race against the weather to find out why they have moved, sure that snow and freezing temperatures will kill off what they believe is the entirety of the North American monarch population before they can breed and start their migration back in the spring.  The small town where the woman lives is turned upside down as the media, the scientific community, and a host of monarch spectators descend upon the mountain.  Enter a mysterious and exotic scientist, in laws from hell and a sweet but simple best friend, and the story takes off.  The woman is transformed by the butterfly happening and soon finds herself at a crossroads in her life.  Those of you who know me would immediately think that I'd have this book perched on the top of the pile of books eagerly waiting the opportunity to read it.  But in fact it was a chore to finish.

Kingsolver likes to explore social issues in her novels; Native American parentage, missionaries in indigineous culture, environmental and political issues to name a few.  She is outspoken about social change and for that I applaud her.  She has a science background and her husband is a biologist by trade, so environmental issues like climate change are no great stretch for her.  But here's where it went wrong for me.

Flight Behavior is pedantic and preachy.  Her characters are cutouts of real people and their story just doesn't ring true for me.  I felt like Kingsolver took a speech that she or her husband gave about climate change, with key points and issues, and crafted characters to say her words and illustrate the points.  She hit every one. Her characters are stereotypical and their words sound as if they are parroting what the scientific community is telling us about the issue. Not that the message doesn't need to be told, but I would expect a more creative treatment; one with more finesse than what Kingsolver gave us.  In the telling of the story, the local mountain folks are painted as dumb hicks from the back country, an (I'm sure) unintended consequence of the stark contrast between locals and the scientific elite. Frankly, her portrayal of these people was depressing and sad.  Reading it each night proved to be a downer, not an interesting and enlightening experience.

Now, for the record, I am an environmental education professional in my real life, so I have heard the climate change rhetoric for years.  I know the key points and have taught about the issue for the better part of 30 years in one form or another.  So maybe reading this book felt a little like a bus man's holiday for me, but I was saddened to think about those that don't believe and needed to hear the issue spelled out, because I think they got a school house lesson thinly veiled as a novel.  Even the end was not as satisfying as it could have been.  I'm not sure that this approach is one that will entertain people and take them on a ride that will help them understand and change their views, but will give them the feeling of being hit over the head with a two by four until they get it.

Come on Barbara, teach if you want, but don't put away your beautiful storytelling skills while you do it.  They are what engender more understanding than a lecture.  You're better than that.

Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill

I was going to write about another book today, but when I sat down to do it, I couldn't remember the title, just that I didn't like it much.  So I decided that it wasn't really worth writing about if I couldn't even remember the title not 3 weeks after I finished it. 

Instead I wanted to tell you about another book that I read a few weekends ago.  Someone Knows My Name is an epic tale of Aminata, a young African girl who is kidnapped from her village in 1757 and sold into the US slave trade.  She survives the grueling trip aboard a slave ship to be sold onto a South Carolina indigo plantation.  Eventually she is bought by an indigo inspector who takes her to New York City where she eventually escapes and hooks up with abolitionists who take her to Nova Scotia, Sierra Leone and eventually to England to testify in Parliament against slavery. 

It’s a gripping tale.  I started it on Saturday morning and by about 1:00 that day I was already to page 104.  I didn't want to put it down.  Aminata’s life is interesting and action packed and tragic and reads a little like an overview illustration of the slave trade and practices that were so abundant in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries.  It was a topical book to read during February when we celebrate Black History Month. 

The story is simply written and well drawn so it moves and reads easily.  In fact if not for the blatant violence and somewhat lurid sexual overtones, it might read a little like a Young Adult novel. Imagine “Roots For Girls”.  It was a fun read, something to lose yourself in on a cold rainy weekend.  Even with all the history I've learned and the historical fiction I've read, I was introduced to some new parts of the slave story and gained a new insight on what that journey would have been like for a young woman. 

After the Revolutionary War, the British Government offered those black people who fought or supported their side, the opportunity for freedom and a new start in Nova Scotia.  Runaway slaves and freed blacks were registered in the Book of Negroes, a registry of sympathizers and, with the promise of land ownership, were systematically sent by ship up the coast to Nova Scotia to start over.  Of course the promises were never really fulfilled and the land and climate was such that farming was virtually impossible, so many came back or moved elsewhere.  A group of British abolitionists convinced some of those who were disillusioned to travel back to Africa and begin a colony in Freetown Sierra Leone, right in the backyard of the center of the slave trade.  Its not hard to imagine why that wasn’t such a good idea.  Aminata’s life chronicles these footnotes of history and gives a voice to those who made these amazing journeys. 

My only complaint with the novel was that Aminata’s story is a little coincidental. Some reviewers likened her character to an 18^th century Oprah.  She’s just a little too talented and fortunate.  She reads and writes, can translate two African languages, is a talented midwife and healer, speaks well in public, can set type and edit, keep books and write law and survives four long ocean voyages. She even is the scribe for the Book of Negroes.  There’s really nothing she can’t do.  But then again, her story is meant to be extraordinary. 

What struck me as brilliance is the level of detail with which Lawrence Hill writes Aminata’s story.  He must have employed an army of researchers to fact check every detail that lends the color and atmosphere to the book.  He really knows his stuff.  Son of two Canadian civil rights activists, Hill has the perspective and understanding of his subject matter that comes from being around it his whole life.  He is a talented storyteller and understands how to hook a reader and keep them interested throughout the whole book while learning something along the way.

So on these cold and rainy March weekends, give yourself a treat and pick up Someone Knows My Name.  Light a fire in the fireplace, curl up on the couch with some snacks and a warm drink and dig in.  You won’t be sorry you did.