Product Description
Chaz Wilmot is a painter born outside his time. He possesses a virtuosic command of the techniques of the old masters. He can paint like Leonardo, Goya, Gainsborough—artists whose works sell for millions—but this style of painting is no longer popular, and he refuses to shape his talent to fit the fashion of the day. So Wilmot makes his living cranking out parodies for ads and magazine covers. A break comes when an art dealer obtains for him a commission to restore a Venetian palace fresco by the eighteenth-century master Tiepolo, for a disreputable Italian businessman. Once there, Wilmot discovers that it is not a restoration but a re-creation, indeed a forgery. At first skeptical of the job, he then throws himself into the creative challenge and does the job brilliantly. No one can tell the modern work from something done more than two hundred years ago. This feat attracts the attention of Werner Krebs, an art dealer with a dark past and shadier present who becomes Wilmot's friend and patron. Wilmot is suddenly working with a fervor he hasn't felt in years, but his burst of creative activity is accompanied by strange interludes: Without warning, he finds himself reliving moments from his past—not as memories but as if they are happening all over again. Soon, it is no longer his own past he's revisiting; he believes he can travel back to the seventeenth century, where he lived as the Spanish artist Diego Rodríguez de Silva Velázquez, one of the most famous painters in history. Wilmot begins to fantasize that as Velázquez, he has created a masterpiece, a stunning portrait of a nude. When the painting actually turns up, he doesn't know if he painted it or if he imagined the whole thing. Little by little, Wilmot enters a mirror house of illusions and hallucinations that propels him into a secret world of gangsters, greed, and murder, with his mystery patron at the center of it all, either as the mastermind behind a plot to forge a painting worth hundreds of millions, or as the man who will save Wilmot from obscurity and madness. In Chaz Wilmot, we meet the rarest breed of literary hero, one for whom the reader feels almost personally responsible. By turns brutally honest and self-deceptive, scornful of the world while yearning to make his mark on it, Wilmot comes astonishingly alive for the reader, and his perilous journey toward the truth becomes our own. The Forgery of Venus, a blend of erudition, unflagging narrative brio, and emotional depth, brings us inexorably toward the intersection where genius and insanity collide. Miraculously inventive, this book cements Gruber's reputation as one of the most imaginative and gifted writers of our time.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 29 reviews)

The best Gruber by C. Kovac

5 Stars
September 30, 2009
Admittedly, I am a Michael Gruber fan - but this is perhaps his best book yet. We get what we have come to expect from this writer - snappy dialogue, sophistication, humor. A master of the change-up, Gruber has a way of juxtaposing within a single sentence erudition and idiom that keeps the reader on their toes. A finely drawn (npi) central character with more depth than we've seen before in Gruber's previous novels. Not surprisingly, there is a supernatural angle in the book - but this time it takes us into a realm of psychology and introspection and leads us to important questions that just might be relevant in our own lives. The nature of reality, in a world where many things become more and more virtual. The obligations that come with talent - you gotta wonder if Gruber's own personal history, using his own considerable talent to ghost for another for so long, isn't reflected in Chaz Wilmot's life story. I loved the Gruber books in the Karp series; I liked the Jimmy Paz novels. I read the Book of Air and Shadows and enjoyed it - but I can't remember it now. This one is different, and better. Kudos, Mr. Gruber - I can hardly wait for your next.

Author is great, narrator is wanting by The Lorax

3 Stars
July 30, 2009
I'm enjoying the story very much, but the narration on the CD version is wretched. The acting is terrible, there is no vocal distinction between the characters so you can't tell who is saying what. There is barely any inflection and there are foreign characters, but no attempt at developing accents. I hope I don't have to listen to this narrator again--very poor, though the story is very enjoyable and is drawing me along very effectively.

Art Forgery Audio Unabridged 9 cds by Barbara Lane (Sydney Australia)

4 Stars
July 24, 2009
It's been suggested that there's a fine line between brilliance and madness and it is exactly this edge becomes the centerpiece of exploration for "The Forgery of Venus." This brilliantly written, fascinating story focuses on the life of Chaz Wilmot, an artist of exceptional talent who has had to make a hard living from commercial work. Chaz Wilmont has led a less than normal life (doing drugs) and despite his superior talent, he finds himself desperate for money to help support his sick child who needs expensive medical treatment. To make ends meet, Chaz first agrees to participate in a drug study on creativity. He also receives an even more lucrative offer he finds he cannot refuse. His best friend, gallery owner Mark Slade, tells him about a ceiling in Venice that needs a secret restoration. He is worried it is more of a forgery but desparate for money he agrees. Fast pace and intreging. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the arts.

Book Club Selection by Designer Lady (Carmel , Ca, USA)

5 Stars
June 08, 2009
An accomplished writer / avid reader in my book club highly recommended this book for our group, and I was so happy she did. Gruber wraps it all up in this book - intellect, drama, humor, history, and outstanding writing technique. I don't do "time travel" well (says my husband) but Gruber successfully wove a tale that could traverse centuries seamlessly. Outstanding!

TheForgery of Venus by JS Ward

5 Stars
May 07, 2009
Brilliant read, very clever, not one to be missed Inspired to read more by Michael Gruber

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