Having just read about female surrealist artists in The Paris Muse by Louise Treager I was so ready for this story about the art world, women painters and a mystery surrounding British artist Juliette Willoughby. The writers tell their story across three timelines. In 1938, Juliette Willoughby is living and painting alongside her lover Oskar in Paris. A British heiress, she left her family and their money behind for a life as an artist who is best known for her painting ‘Self-Portait as Sphinx’, thought to be lost in a studio fire where she also lost her life. We meet our main characters Caroline and Patrick at Cambridge in 1991, where they are both studying art history and specialise in the Surrealists. They are sent to the same dissertation supervisor and while researching come across something sinister about Juliette’s death. Their investigations may expose terrible secrets about the Willoughby family, who are acquaintances of both students and aristocrats who don’t want their family history out in the open. Our final timeline is present day Dubai where Patrick is an art dealer and lives with his wife. Caroline is now an academic and expert on Surrealism, especially Juliette Willoughby so when a new Self-Portrait as Sphinx is uncovered he asks her to fly to Dubai and authenticate the painting. A sale is on the cards and Patrick needs to know if this painting is a second version by the artist and potentially worth millions. He plans a night for collectors to view the painting and offer sealed bids, but the night ends with Patrick in a cell accused of murdering one of his closest friends – the last surviving member of the Willoughby. There are now three suspicious deaths linked to this painting, but can Caroline unlock the mystery before Patrick is charged with a crime he didn’t commit?
I have a real interest in art history and the lives of artists, probably formed when I studied Victorian art history as part of my literature degree. My particular interests are the Pre-Raphaelites, the Arts and Crafts movement, Klimt and Frida Khalo, so it was brilliant to learn more about the Surrealists who are outside of my experience. My only understanding is that the artists may be representing the contents of their subconscious rather than the conscious. I can be a little bit scathing of some modern art, having my teenage years in the 1990s we were in the world of the YBAs – such as Damien Hurst and Tracey Emin. I have been to gallery openings where I could only conclude that other people had an ability to see something I couldn’t or that everyone was affected by a dose of the Emperor’s New Clothes – too scared to say anything negative they just nodded along and agreed it was good. I will never grasp why people spend a fortune on paintings that are nothing more than a red square on a beige background. As you can imagine, I drove my artist friend crazy when we visited the Guggenheim in NYC. I understand a piece that hits you in the emotions or a true passion to own and look at something incredibly beautiful every day, but it seems that more often than not investors pay millions for something that will sit in a storage unit. I thought I might find the art world in the book pretentious, but I could understand Caroline’s deep fascination with Juliette. There’s something about a female artist, often overshadowed by the man she lives with, that brings out the feminist in me. From Dora Maar whose photography and painting was eclipsed by Picasso to authors like Zelda Fitzgerald, thought to have contributed greatly to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing, there’s an urge to uncover their talent and put them in their historical context. This is the passion of Caroline, but Patrick is definitely complicit in trying to solve the mysteries the this particular painting found at a party in the Willoughby mansion.
This story has all the ingredients of a good old-fashioned mystery with the archetypal eccentric aristocratic family at it’s centre. Juliette’s father is an Egyptologist who never got over the death of her younger sister Lucy who drowned in the lake. Juliette is aware that she can never measure up to the baby of the family, who never reached her teenage years or tested her family. After her death, her father built a pyramid shaped sarcophagus on the island in the middle of the lake. Close to Lucy’s death, a maid disappeared from the house and then Juliette’s cat went missing too. Keeping the Egyptian theme was the club the Willoughby men formed at university, which had several similarities to the Bullingdon club. It was like an American college fraternity with it’s own initiation tests, pranks and hazing rituals. All members wear a signet ring with an Egyptian hieroglyph. Patrick was friends with both Harry and Freddie Willoughby, but the brother’ enmity for each other ran deep. At the party attended by Caroline and Patrick, Freddie disappeared after falling from some scaffolding during an argument with his brother. The amount of blood left behind would indicate a severe head injury but he is nowhere to be found, much to the distress of his girlfriend Athenia. It’s this same night when Caroline finds Juliette’s masterpiece and her diary. On impulse she takes the painting, wraps it carefully and places it in the boot of Patrick’s MG. What can she do with it from here and will the Willoughby’s know that it’s gone? Patrick suggests it’s placed in a small country sale where it’s value will go under the radar and they should be able to legitimately buy it, yet the unthinkable happens and the painting soars above when they can afford. Caroline still has the diary though and through it we can hear about her life with Oskar and the inspiration for the painting. She brings 1930s Paris alive for us a d provides clues to the symbolism of her Sphinx painting.
Finally, these sections are interspersed with the present day where Patrick has asked Caroline to come to Dubai. This is all the more tense because she is his ex-wife and Patrick has remarried. He wants her in Paris to answer questions that potential investors might ask. How can she know this piece is by the same artist as the 1930’s painting and is it from the same time period? There are differences in the smaller narrative parts of the painting in the background, why would the artist change them? Soon the presence of the painting brings other people from the past into Dubai, including Freddie’s girlfriend from the 1990’s Athenia. She is advising one investor who wants to remain nameless and as they all gather to make their bids in just one night it becomes clear that Patrick and Caroline’s reputations hang in the balance. However, it’s Patrick who finds himself in a cell, losing his standing, his financial future, his liberty and possibly even his marriage. What could have gone so wrong? This is such a complex mystery and as we get closer to unravelling some of the secrets, the tension starts to build. It definitely grips you and keeps the pressure on. I loved the history unravelled through Juliette’s diary and her take on what it’s like to live and work alongside another artist. There’s a certain point where I found myself reaching for the book in my downtime more than putting on the TV or radio. It’s a real skill to build tension like these authors do, slowly but surely sucking you in. You will find that you want the answers as much as Caroline and Patrick do. I also thought there were more tangled questions than they could ever resolve, but keep going. It’s definitely worth it and there are no loose ends left untied. I found myself focused on Juliette, Caroline and Patrick more than any other characters. Others are definitely hard to like – especially those with the hint of the Bullingdon Club in their pasts and a sense of elitist entitlement in their characters. These are people who will commit any sort of crime to keep their status and the respectability of their family. I found this attitude strangely believable in the recent political climate where lies and cover-ups seem to be the norm. I was amazed how well it was all tied-up and how the author used distraction and first person narrative to make sure we only read what they wanted us to. The novel moves effortlessly from writer to writer and I wouldn’t have known it was a writing team. They are masters at letting us into some secrets while shielding others until later on, right up until the last few pages.
Out now from Pan MacMillan
Meet the Authors
Ellery Lloyd is the pseudonym for New York Times bestselling husband-and-wife writing team Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos.
Collette is a journalist and editor, the former content director of Elle (UK) and editorial director at Soho House. She has written for The Guardian, The Telegraph, and the Sunday Times.
Paul is the author of two previous novels, Welcome to the Working Week and Every Day is Like Sunday. He is the program director for Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Greenwich.
The Lotus Readers 