I enjoyed Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel, The Historian, so I was excited to receive a copy of the author's new book, The Swan Thieves, to read. The novel is about art and obsession, madness and love--you know, all the good stuff. It also seemed to me to be more character-focused rather than plot centric.
The story is a simple mystery, which slowly unravels as the book unfolds. A celebrated artist, Robert Oliver, is arrested after trying to stab a painting at the National Gallery of Art. Oliver is entrusted into the care of psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Marlow; but maddeningly for Marlow, refuses to speak after his first day in the hospital. Marlow's quest to find out more about Oliver, his obsessions and illness, and why he would have attempted to destroy the painting, is the essential premise of the novel.
Marlow first travels to North Carolina to interview Oliver's ex-wife, Kate, who's recollections in the book are told in the first person. Similarly, when Marlow interviews the elusive Mary, another of Oliver's women, her tales of her time with the painter are told in the first person--ostensibly in the form of letters she decides to write Marlow rather than telling her story to him verbally. This seemed to me a strange way to get the fuller detail of Mary's story from her head rather than her mouth. While both women seem content to overshare with the doctor, and do go into minute detail, the big mysteries surrounding Oliver and his obsessions remain until the end of the book. It was difficult for me to swallow that Oliver's wife, the woman he lived with for more than a decade, would not have more answers.
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