This quick-moving tale about a disgraced artist conscripted to copy a looted Degas would be a good complement to Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. Both work in themes of authenticity, artifice, guilt, innocence, but where Goldfinch meditates more on grief and solitude, The Art Forger goes for page-turning twists; an enjoyable read nonetheless.
donna tartt recommendation
Blood in the Parlor, Dorothy Dunbar
I was looking for an odd little gem to read, and a recommendation from Donna Tartt, made in an old Voice article, prompted me to pick up Dunbar's tales of "creative murders, committed by people with a sense of symmetry and imagination in life, art, and crime." From Tartt's recommendation: "My mother has had this book since I was a little girl, but no one else I know has ever heard of it, and it's almost impossible to find. Each of the 12 stories is an account of a 19th-century murder told with a light, macabre sense of humor. I'd love to see it back in print with illustrations by Edward Gorey."
I checked out a copy at the Center for Fiction; perfect, light reading for the days leading up to Halloween. Dunbar has a wry wit -- take, for instance, this observation about the horror of Lizzie Borden's murderous spree: "There are many elements of horror in the Borden case, but one of the worst was the August fourth breakfast---mutton, sugar cakes, coffee, and mutton broth."
