Writer: Jessie Burton
Year: 2016
Pages: 445
IBSN: 9781447250944
Nota: 10/10
SYNOPSIS
A picture hides a thousand words . . .
On a hot July day in 1967, Odelle Bastien climbs the stone steps of the Skelton gallery in London, knowing that her life is about to change forever. Having struggled to find her place in the city since she arrived from Trinidad five years ago, she has been offered a job as a typist under the tutelage of the glamorous and enigmatic Marjorie Quick. But though Quick takes Odelle into her confidence, and unlocks a potential she didn't know she had, she remains a mystery - no more so than when a lost masterpiece with a secret history is delivered to the gallery.
The truth about the painting lies in 1936 and a large house in rural Spain, where Olive Schloss, the daughter of a renowned art dealer, is harbouring ambitions of her own. Into this fragile paradise come artist and revolutionary Isaac Robles and his half-sister Teresa, who immediately insinuate themselves into the Schloss family, with explosive and devastating consequences . . .
On a hot July day in 1967, Odelle Bastien climbs the stone steps of the Skelton gallery in London, knowing that her life is about to change forever. Having struggled to find her place in the city since she arrived from Trinidad five years ago, she has been offered a job as a typist under the tutelage of the glamorous and enigmatic Marjorie Quick. But though Quick takes Odelle into her confidence, and unlocks a potential she didn't know she had, she remains a mystery - no more so than when a lost masterpiece with a secret history is delivered to the gallery.
The truth about the painting lies in 1936 and a large house in rural Spain, where Olive Schloss, the daughter of a renowned art dealer, is harbouring ambitions of her own. Into this fragile paradise come artist and revolutionary Isaac Robles and his half-sister Teresa, who immediately insinuate themselves into the Schloss family, with explosive and devastating consequences . . .
This is not at all one of those books that I would like to read, but when I
travelled to London I saw this book advertised literally everywhere, subway
stations, buses, billboards… It got my attention because it has a beautiful cover
and I said to me: ‘if I see another ad, I buy it.’ And, two more steps and I
did see an and, and a few hours later I bought the book. I fact, I did not know
that I bought it in the so-called ‘the oldest bookshop in the United Kingdom’, Hatchards: stunning.
It was recently
published so I could not read any review and I did not read the blurb, so this
book was totally a surprise.
The book has two
temporal settings, divided into sections, one is located in London in 1967, the
“present”, and the other is located in Spain back in 1936.
In 1967,
Odelle Bastien is a young girl from Trinidad that had left her country to go to
London to make a living with her friend Cynth. Odelle starts to work in an art
gallery, the Skelton, where she meets Marjorie Quick, an enigmatic woman
surrounded by a mysterious air. When Cynth gets married, in the wedding feast,
Odelle meets a young man, Lawrie Scott, who has a painting inherited from his
mother, Santa Rufina y el león. The following day, Lawrie goes to the
art gallery where Odelle works with the painting and he shows it to the director
of the museum to see if they can find out something about it. They discover
that, presumably, it was painted by Isaac Robles, a Spanish painter that
disappeared during the Spanish Civil War. Thenceforward, in that temporal
frame, the characters try to find out who painted the picture, why, under what
circumstances, and secrets from the past will be uncovered related to some
characters.
In 1936, we
find Shloss family, the father, Harold, is a Viennese art dealer, Sarah, the
woman, and Olive, their daughter. One day, Teresa Robles and Isaac Robles come
to serve in their house. They are brothers, and he starts a romantic
relationship with Olive. Isaac is a painter with a left-wing ideology, very
dangerous during that atmosphere of instability prior to the outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War, and whose disappearance during it surrounds him in a mysterious
air. Olive painted secretly because her father did not appreciate her art. She
plots a plan to trick her parents because they did not want her to become a
painter. In this temporal framework, it is narrated what happens to these
characters from the moment Teresa and Isaac comes to serve until few time after
the outbreak of the Civil War.
Both temporal
frameworks are bind together just by the painting.
This is one of
those books that hooks you from the very beginning.
Every change in
time ends with an extraordinary cadence that leaves you wanting to read more
and more about that time, but then you start with another temporal framework
and you forget about the previous one, because every new chapter reveals a new
mystery, what makes you to get addicted to it from the first page until the end
of the book.
The mystery about
who painted the painting, why was inherited by Lawrie, who is he, what does
Quick have to do will all this, what happened to Isaac Robles, are the schemes
of the history that leaves you bewildered and fascinated because in the
beginning you draw up an hypothesis and, suddenly, there is a plot twist and
the hypothesis that you have drawn up is untenable, and you have to hypothesize
another theory, until you get to the end and you get amaze!
Besides, it is one
of those books that when you finish it, it leaves you with a sensation of vacuum
and sadness, because you get involved in it and gets you in the storyline that
when you finish it you feel lost and you want more.
It is highly recommendable and quite enjoyable!
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