The Muse Book Review : Family Secrets and Lies

What is this about?: The story of the Odelle’s pursuit of the truth about the Schloss and Robles family secrets and lies in a way. The strength in this novel though is the evocative tapestry Jessie Burton creates taking the story from 1967 to 1936 and back again.

What else is this about?: Odelle, who is trying to find herself and pursue her talents, as she gets swept up in the Schloss/Robles families.

Stars: 3.5

Should you read: Yes. This is a character-rich novel, winding through time and London and Spain.

Blurb: From the internationally bestselling author of The Miniaturistcomes a captivating and brilliantly realized story of two young women—a Caribbean immigrant in 1960s London, and a bohemian woman in 1930s Spain—and the powerful mystery that ties them together.

England, 1967. Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean émigré trying to make her way in London. When she starts working at the prestigious Skelton Art Gallery, she discovers a painting rumored to be the work of Isaac Robles, a young artist of immense talent and vision whose mysterious death has confounded the art world for decades. The excitement over the painting is matched by the intrigue around the conflicting stories of its discovery. Drawn into a complex web of secrets and deceptions, Odelle does not know what to believe or who she can trust, including her mesmerizing colleague, Marjorie Quick.

Spain, 1937. Olive Schloss, the daughter of a Viennese Jewish art dealer and English heiress, follows her parents to Arazuelo, a poor, restless village on the southern coast. She grows close to Teresa, a young housekeeper, and her half-brother Isaac Robles, an idealistic and ambitious painter newly returned from the Barcelona salons. A dilettante buoyed by the revolutionary fervor that will soon erupt into civil war, Isaac dreams of being a painter as famous as his countryman, Picasso.

Raised in poverty, these illegitimate children of the local landowner revel in exploiting this wealthy Anglo-Austrian family. Insinuating themselves into the Schloss’s lives, Teresa and Isaac help Olive conceal her artistic talents with devastating consequences that will echo into the decades to come.

Rendered in exquisite detail, The Muse is a passionate and enthralling tale of desire, ambition, and the ways in which the tides of history inevitably shape and define our lives.

The Muse is a story that takes place in London and Spain, in 1967 and 1936 respectively. The latter timeline answers the questions that appear in the first, but I still feel like something is missing in the connection between them. It’s odd, I know, but I kind of feel like the stronger story was the one being told in Spain in 1936. Or, rather I am not entirely convinced that Odelle was the best character through which this story should be told in 1967.

First, Jessie Burton has written a rich, evocative story spanning time and space (or places) as it turns out. The times and societies she writes about are rich in detail, the kind you just fall into and forget what you’re reading because every sentence is something new that makes you forget what came before? Yeah. I felt like I was speed reading just to take in everything for some reason. I still haven’t shaken that feeling.

Odelle is the heroine of this story, if there is such a thing for this story, that is. She works in a shoe store and dreams of more, and achieves it working for a gallery where she meets Lawrie, and introduces him and a painting of his mother’s that he wants to sell, to her bosses. One of those bosses? Marjorie Quick. An enigmatic and compelling women who draws Odette in, especially as the questions around Lawrie’s painting increase and Odelle absolutely wants answers.

The problem with Odelle is that this is a story about secrets that are coming out, but I didn’t get the sense that they meant anything to her. She wanted answers to questions, but those answers didn’t really affect her I thought. I don’t quite know how to explain it without spilling spoilers, but when it comes to a novel about secrets and lies, I need to feel like the main character as least has a vested interest in finding the answers to these secrets — like there’s an emotional risk for the person. To Odelle, I felt like they were just something to know.

While these events unfurl in 1967, the story in 1936 tells us how the painting came to be through the relationship with Ivan, Olive and Teresa. They’re a complicated threesome to say the least, and their relationship is something that made me go woah, more than once. I would’ve liked to have known more about them.

In the story set in the present, there are other characters I wanted to know more about, who could have added more to the story without Odelle being the filter through which their stories are being told.

This is one of those books I’m going to back and forth on, because as much I think there are faults with it, it’s just so good in other ways. 

Would you give this a go?