Product Description

Chaz Wilmot is a painter born outside his time. He possesses a virtuosic command of the techniques of the old masters. He can paint like Leonardo, Goya, Gainsborough—artists whose works sell for millions—but this style of painting is no longer popular, and he refuses to shape his talent to fit the fashion of the day. So Wilmot makes his living cranking out parodies for ads and magazine covers. A break comes when an art dealer obtains for him a commission to restore a Venetian palace fresco by the eighteenth-century master Tiepolo, for a disreputable Italian businessman. Once there, Wilmot discovers that it is not a restoration but a re-creation, indeed a forgery. At first skeptical of the job, he then throws himself into the creative challenge and does the job brilliantly. No one can tell the modern work from something done more than two hundred years ago.

This feat attracts the attention of Werner Krebs, an art dealer with a dark past and shadier present who becomes Wilmot's friend and patron. Wilmot is suddenly working with a fervor he hasn't felt in years, but his burst of creative activity is accompanied by strange interludes: Without warning, he finds himself reliving moments from his past—not as memories but as if they are happening all over again. Soon, it is no longer his own past he's revisiting; he believes he can travel back to the seventeenth century, where he lived as the Spanish artist Diego Rodríguez de Silva Velázquez, one of the most famous painters in history. Wilmot begins to fantasize that as Velázquez, he has created a masterpiece, a stunning portrait of a nude. When the painting actually turns up, he doesn't know if he painted it or if he imagined the whole thing.

Little by little, Wilmot enters a mirror house of illusions and hallucinations that propels him into a secret world of gangsters, greed, and murder, with his mystery patron at the center of it all, either as the mastermind behind a plot to forge a painting worth hundreds of millions, or as the man who will save Wilmot from obscurity and madness.

In Chaz Wilmot, we meet the rarest breed of literary hero, one for whom the reader feels almost personally responsible. By turns brutally honest and self-deceptive, scornful of the world while yearning to make his mark on it, Wilmot comes astonishingly alive for the reader, and his perilous journey toward the truth becomes our own.

The Forgery of Venus, a blend of erudition, unflagging narrative brio, and emotional depth, brings us inexorably toward the intersection where genius and insanity collide. Miraculously inventive, this book cements Gruber's reputation as one of the most imaginative and gifted writers of our time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11921 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-01
• Released on: 2008-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Bestseller Gruber (The Book of Air and Shadows) probes the boundaries between sanity and madness in his outstanding sixth novel. Talented Chaz Wilmot, who makes a modest living as a commercial artist in New York City, can't say no when Mark Slade, his former Columbia roommate who now owns a downtown gallery, offers him $150,000 to fix a ruined Tiepolo ceiling in a Venetian palazzo (the ceiling had essentially collapsed, so it wasn't a restoration job exactly but more like a reproducing job). Once abroad, Wilmot gets sucked into an increasingly bizarre world where his own identity is confused and the art he produces may be a forgery but is genuinely magnificent. Is Wilmot crazy or is he being manipulated in a grandiose scheme linked to unrecovered art stolen by the Nazis? Gruber writes passionately and knowledgeably about art and its history—and he writes brilliantly about the shadowy lines that blur reality and unreality. Fans of intelligent, literate thrillers will be well rewarded. (Apr.)
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Review
"(An) imaginative novel of psychological suspense." -- Boston Globe

"Gruber is on a roll…[a] terrific art-historical thriller…a perfect place to get lost for a few days. Once again, Gruber mines a popular vein and strikes gold." -- Booklist (starred review)

"Gruber writes passionately and knowledgeably about art and its history--and he writes brilliantly about the shadowy lines that blur reality and unreality. Fans of intelligent, literate thrillers will be well rewarded." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Ingenious...The author owns his subject matter and packs it with well-researched details, making this...a successful, suspenseful examination of insanity, forgery and reality." -- Chicago Sun-Times

"Irresistible. Fast, Frightening and, as usual, richly imagined." -- Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"Michael Gruber has created a first-rate thriller that throws the reader into the art world, past and present." -- Chronicle Herald, Nova Scotia

"Michael Gruber’s new thriller, THE FORGERY OF VENUS, is as layered as a luminous portrait by an old master. A tour-de-force combination of suspense and characterization, as well as a primer on the world of art and art forgery." -- Seattle Times

"Smart and literate. Gruber approaches art with obvious appreciation, and has woven a clever story with plenty of detail." -- Wichita Eagle

"Stunning...utterly unique, and breathtakingly original. It’s one of those novels you want to press upon your friends, fully confident that it will not disappoint. It’s a tour de force performance from Gruber, and a novel worthy of considerable attention." -- Edmonton Journal (Canada)

"This is an art lover’s dream. Mystery and obsession are textured with art history in a plot that explores not only the shifting nature of art, but also the complex nature of identity. -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

About the Author

Michael Gruber is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Book of Air and Shadows. He and his wife, painter Elizabeth Winder Noyes, live in Seattle, Washington.

Customer Reviews

I didn't want to put it down!
Having enjoyed Gruber's "Book of Air and Shadows", I was looking forward to "The Forgery of Venus" and I was not disappointed. The story grabbed me from the very beginning and didn't have a slow spot all the way through.

The book has an unusual perspective, the first person narration is presented as a recording made by artist Chaz Wilmot, Jr. for a friend and is a recounting of his experiences and memories of his involvement with the discovery (or is it forgery?) of a previously unknown Velzaquez painting. The beginning and end is written from the perspective of the friend and the middle is the playback of the recording.

"The Forgery of Venus" reminded me of some of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's books. I'm not sure if it is because of the Spain/Velazquez component or because if the way the narrative is presented, or if it is the story itself, but I felt like it had a similar flavor, expecially to "The Flanders Panel" and "The Nautical Chart."

I enjoyed every page of "The Forgery of Venus" though I did feel a bit of a let-down at the handling of the ending. Ambiguous endings can challenge the imagination or just make the reader think "Come on, I want to know what really happened!" and for me I wanted to know!

A mix of art, dreaming, time traveling and other things
I have liked everything Gruber writes (especially Night of the Jaguar and Tropic of Night). He is smart, imaginative, his ideas are provocative and go outside the boundaries of our current socialization. This book tackles the springs of creativeness. His artist hero is a great imitator of old masters. He is not a forger but a reinventor of new art in old techniques. The artist merges with Velasquez after taking a new drug being tested and ... Read the book, it's worth it.

Classic Gruber
This is a fantastic book. It keeps you guessing. Classic Michael Gruber. You just can't put it down.