The Forgery of Venus

The plot of Michael Gruber's The Forgery of Venus seems a bit convoluted, but I found it to be a very satisfying read. When talented painter Chaz Wilmot gets involved in a dangerous, but financially lucrative plot to forge a famous painting by a Spanish master, his life and his sanity are at risk. The story begins with Chaz mysteriously delivering a CD to an old college classmate, and then disappearing. On the CD are hours of recordings of Chaz, telling a story that becomes stranger by the minute. As his classmate begins to listen to Chaz's tale, he begins to wonder whether Chaz has lost his mind. Chaz, a very talented painter, has never made much of his talent. When Chaz agrees to participate in a psychological drug study, he begins to hallucinate that he is living the life of a famous Spanish painter, Velazquez, who lived in the 1600s. A shady European art dealer gets wind of Chaz's hallucinations and offers him a job he can't refuse forging a famous Velazquez painting. Soon, Chaz is consumed with the painting and begins having difficulty telling reality from his hallucinations.

I probably picked this book up because it seems to have a lot of the elements I like in a suspense novel: art, Nazi art theft, and history. But Gruber also incorporates some unique features that made this one stand out from the others. I loved how the story was written as if it was a transcription from a recording. It sounds just the way someone (who is slightly nuts) might tell a story verbally. Gruber also transitioned Chaz from the present into his hallucinations so seamlessly, it takes a second to realize what is happening, which makes it seem so real. And his descriptions of Velazquez's life are so vivid. I also found myself stopping and trying to figure out what was real and what was just a hallucination, which also made it seem more realistic. The one disappointment was that we don't really know how or why Chaz seemed to inhabit Velazquez's life, which I thought was one of the most intriguing aspects of the story.