The Portrait FROM THE PUBLISHER
A perfectly rendered short novel of suspense about a painter driven to extremes.
An influential art critic in the early years of the twentieth century journeys from London to the rustic, remote island of Houat, off France's northwest coast, to sit for a portrait painted by an old friend, a gifted but tormented artist living in self-imposed exile. Over the course of the sitting, the painter recalls their years of friendship, the double-edged gift of the critic's patronage, the power he wielded over aspiring artists, and his apparent callousness in anointing the careers of some and devastating the lives of others. The balance of power between the two men shifts dramatically as the critic becomes a passive subject, while the painter struggles to capture the character of the man, as well as his image, on canvas.
Reminiscing with ease and familiarity one minute, with anger and menace the next, the painter eventually reveals why he has accepted the commission of this portrait, why he left London suddenly and mysteriously at the height of his success, and why now, with dark determination, he feels ready to return.
Set against the dramatic, untamed landscape of Brittany during one of the most explosive periods in art history, The Portrait is rich with atmosphere and suggestion, psychological complexity, and marvelous detail. It is a novel you will want to begin again immediately after turning the last chilling page, to read once more with a watchful eye and appreciate the hand of an ingenious storyteller at work.
Author Biography: Iain Pears is the author of the New York Times bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost and the national bestseller The Dream of Scipio, as well as a series of acclaimed detective novels, a book of art history, and countless articles on artistic, financial, and historical subjects.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Justly praised for his complex historical thrillers (An Instance of the Fingerpost; The Dream of Scipio), Pears scales down to a simple tale of vengeance told by a narrator obsessed with destroying the man he once called his friend and mentor. Henry MacAlpine has abandoned his comfortable life as a celebrated portraitist in early 1900s London and fled to a tiny island off the coast of Brittany. To that lonely spot he lures William Naysmith, the British art world's most famous critic, with the promise of painting his portrait. In the course of the narrative, MacAlpine recalls the development of his artistic talent with the advice and praise of the ambitious Naysmith. The suspense lies in the gradual revelation of Naysmith's ruthless use of power, yet the double crime for which MacAlpine holds him accountable comes as little surprise. While this novel never approaches the sly cleverness and tingling suspense of John Lanchester's A Debt to Pleasure, which it otherwise resembles, readers will enjoy some period ironies, as when MacAlpine expresses contempt for the upstart French Impressionists, while the contemptible Naysmith discerns their true genius. Anybody in the business of criticism, whether it be artistic or literary, will be chastened by Pears's indictment of a critic's power to make or ruin reputations. Agent, Felicity Bryan. (Apr. 21) Forecast: The relative lack of plot may disappoint Pears's readership, but the subject matter will likely make the book popular fodder for reviewers. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
In his latest work, Pears accomplishes the near-impossible; he turns unstoppable monolog, potentially a one-note bore, into a true tour de force. The monolog, delivered by an unnamed artist painting the portrait of an old friend, is initially engaging and finally utterly chilling in what it reveals of the characters' shared past and the sitter's irredeemable sins. As a callow Scottish boy, the artist had been in thrall to his sitter, a monstrously powerful critic who helped his career. At its height, however, the artist fled early 20th-century London for a rough and rocky little island off the coast of France, and the critic has evidently come to discover why, with the request to have his portrait painted serving as pretext. As the artist unleashes his ever-darker discourse, we learn just how carelessly the critic has treated others, including the artist's model Jacky and a colleague named Evelyn. Though there's a mystery to be cracked here, this is not a thriller in the mode of the author's excellent An Instance of the Fingerpost; Pears steps away from that genre altogether to produce an extraordinary work. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/04.]-Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A Scottish painter meets his English mentor and former friend after many years, in this poisoned miniature from the author of the behemoth An Instance of the Fingerpost (1998) and The Dream of Scipio (2002). In the waning years of the 19th century, William Nasmyth encouraged Henry MacAlpine to paint, shared his knowledge of the European masters with the younger man, included his work in exhibitions he was organizing, and subtly managed at the same time to inhibit and discredit him. Now that the insurgent Impressionists and Post-Impressionists William championed have become establishment artists, Henry, long retired from public life to the tiny Breton island of Houat, has enticed William to the island to sit for his portrait. As William poses in what he takes to be the foreground, silent as a Strindberg foil, Henry reflects on the very different roads that have brought the two of them to this spot at the end of the world. His monologue ranges over the moment when he first knew himself to be an artist, the shameful way he got money for his first trip to Paris, the still undetected fraud he perpetrated on William years ago, and his relations with the painter Evelyn, the prostitute/model Jacky, and the prophetic patron Mrs. Algernon Roberts. Until the very end, narrative elements are resolutely subordinated to an essayistic ramble on the themes of the artist's vocation (the painter is "someone who prays with his brush"), the symbiotic relationship between artists and the critics they hate, and the artist as creator and killer. Though Pears's epigrams are not in the same league with Oscar Wilde's, his grasp of melodrama, honed on his seven mysteries starring Rome's art-theft squad (TheImmaculate Deception, 2000, etc.), is sharp as ever, as he finally indicates in disclosing Henry's motive and master plan. A short story's worth of incident floated on a prickly cushion of aphorism.
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