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Restoration
A missing painting by a legendary suicide provides the key to John Ed Bradley’s mesmerizing novel of New Orleans–a city where art, sex, and race link the city’s decadent past with its decaying present.
The mysterious Levette Asmore was a legend in New Orleans even before he apparently threw himself off the Huey P. Long Bridge in 1941 at the height of his creative powers. Widely regarded as the finest and most original painter ever produced by the American South, Asmore won fame for a series of portraits depicting beautiful young women with whom he was rumored to be sexually involved. And while a certain promiscuity was long tolerated in the old, benighted city, there was no hiding Asmore’s secret past in the dark heart of Depression-era Louisiana. When a newspaper reported that the WPA mural he was painting laid waste to sexual taboos and the prevailing racial order, Asmore was ordered to whitewash the masterpiece before the public was allowed to see it. Weeks after doing so, he was dead.
New Orleans, present day. A young journalist named Jack Charbonnet and the woman he desperately wants, painting restorer Rhys Goudeau, discover that Asmore might not have destroyed his infamous mural after all. If they can find the painting and restore its damaged surface, it promises to answer the riddle of Asmore’s violent death and reveal the reasons for his tortured life. The mural also will be worth millions–more than any other art object ever created by an artist from the region. But to save the painting Goudeau and Charbonnet must outmaneuver their rapaciously greedy rivals in the small but wealthy world of Southern art collectors.
What starts as a comic novel of manners quickly deepens to one of tragic consequence as Charbonnet begins to realize that the Asmore mural–and the frantic hunt for it–are not just about reclaiming a valuable work of art. Rather, the painting represents the murky and troubled history of the South itself, where a legacy of racial intolerance has destroyed its greatest artist as well as his most important creation.
Novelist John Ed Bradley, himself a passionate collector of Southern regionalist paintings, uses his insider knowledge and years of research to create a masterful portrait of the city where he lives and its obsession with the past. In the story of the doomed Asmore, Bradley has written of a time in the South when painting had little to do with decoration and an artist courted death with every stroke of the brush.
The mysterious Levette Asmore was a legend in New Orleans even before he apparently threw himself off the Huey P. Long Bridge in 1941 at the height of his creative powers. Widely regarded as the finest and most original painter ever produced by the American South, Asmore won fame for a series of portraits depicting beautiful young women with whom he was rumored to be sexually involved. And while a certain promiscuity was long tolerated in the old, benighted city, there was no hiding Asmore’s secret past in the dark heart of Depression-era Louisiana. When a newspaper reported that the WPA mural he was painting laid waste to sexual taboos and the prevailing racial order, Asmore was ordered to whitewash the masterpiece before the public was allowed to see it. Weeks after doing so, he was dead.
New Orleans, present day. A young journalist named Jack Charbonnet and the woman he desperately wants, painting restorer Rhys Goudeau, discover that Asmore might not have destroyed his infamous mural after all. If they can find the painting and restore its damaged surface, it promises to answer the riddle of Asmore’s violent death and reveal the reasons for his tortured life. The mural also will be worth millions–more than any other art object ever created by an artist from the region. But to save the painting Goudeau and Charbonnet must outmaneuver their rapaciously greedy rivals in the small but wealthy world of Southern art collectors.
What starts as a comic novel of manners quickly deepens to one of tragic consequence as Charbonnet begins to realize that the Asmore mural–and the frantic hunt for it–are not just about reclaiming a valuable work of art. Rather, the painting represents the murky and troubled history of the South itself, where a legacy of racial intolerance has destroyed its greatest artist as well as his most important creation.
Novelist John Ed Bradley, himself a passionate collector of Southern regionalist paintings, uses his insider knowledge and years of research to create a masterful portrait of the city where he lives and its obsession with the past. In the story of the doomed Asmore, Bradley has written of a time in the South when painting had little to do with decoration and an artist courted death with every stroke of the brush.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published February 18, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 14, 2013
Several years ago I found this book for 50 cents at a used-books sale to benefit the library. I opened it only the other day and found this inscription: To Jerry, from "Rhys Goudeau"/ Blake Vonder Haar/ May 2004/ New Orleans. Rhys Goudeau is the main female character, a fictional art restorer in N.O., and Blake Vonder Haar is a real-life art restorer in N.O. In the acknowledgements the author thanks Vonder Haar and says without her help, he couldn't have written this book. I've had a run of this kind of find recently. (See my review of The Pedant in the Kitchen.) Fairly late in the novel you discover Rhys' full name is Jean Rhys, though there's no further comment. A fairly obvious reason for the author (and the character's mother?) to name her thus exists, but I think it's heavy-handed.
Some minor characters are very well-drawn and the novel's sense of place is fine. My biggest complaint is of characters' responses to the narrator being more like lectures, sometimes in lengthy speeches, and many of these are repetitive, though the narrator, who has lived in N.O. his whole life, isn't stupid -- and neither are readers. Actually, that's my second-biggest complaint: the worst thing is New Orleanians explaining New Orleans terms to other New Orleanians! The narrator even defines garconniere in conversation after it's already been explained for the reader.
I enjoyed the mentions of the many real artists who lived in N.O. at the time of the fictional deceased artist whose work is the focus of the novel, and how his story spools out, even though much of it seems to be given to us in long lessons. Though he is not mentioned, I wondered if some crucial plot points were influenced by Walter Inglis Anderson's own controversial designs for federal art projects in the 30's. I know more about Anderson than I do other Southern artists, so my view is most likely skewed toward him. However, Louisiana irises are said to be depicted in another painting by the fictional artist and irises were a frequent Anderson symbol, so I wondered anew if that was a nod toward him.
While the work of art restoration was made very interesting, quite a bit of the plot machinations don't ring true. Some of the narrator's thoughts about the love-interest are hokey, though these are few, and while I understand a beloved is always beautiful to the 'belovee,' why does the beloved always have to be so beautiful that everyone else thinks so too?
Some minor characters are very well-drawn and the novel's sense of place is fine. My biggest complaint is of characters' responses to the narrator being more like lectures, sometimes in lengthy speeches, and many of these are repetitive, though the narrator, who has lived in N.O. his whole life, isn't stupid -- and neither are readers. Actually, that's my second-biggest complaint: the worst thing is New Orleanians explaining New Orleans terms to other New Orleanians! The narrator even defines garconniere in conversation after it's already been explained for the reader.
I enjoyed the mentions of the many real artists who lived in N.O. at the time of the fictional deceased artist whose work is the focus of the novel, and how his story spools out, even though much of it seems to be given to us in long lessons. Though he is not mentioned, I wondered if some crucial plot points were influenced by Walter Inglis Anderson's own controversial designs for federal art projects in the 30's. I know more about Anderson than I do other Southern artists, so my view is most likely skewed toward him. However, Louisiana irises are said to be depicted in another painting by the fictional artist and irises were a frequent Anderson symbol, so I wondered anew if that was a nod toward him.
While the work of art restoration was made very interesting, quite a bit of the plot machinations don't ring true. Some of the narrator's thoughts about the love-interest are hokey, though these are few, and while I understand a beloved is always beautiful to the 'belovee,' why does the beloved always have to be so beautiful that everyone else thinks so too?
May 18, 2018
Wonderful work of preservation of New Orleans history and culture. A story of intrigue looking into the secret histories of several racially troubled Louisiana families in the 30’s. Sorry LSU Press missed this one!
April 3, 2018
A bit slow until around the middle of the story but then it picks up nicely. Great ending.
July 26, 2021
I loved the writing style of this book, but I really couldn't stand the story. It was just so boring to me.
July 17, 2024
Picked this up at a bookshop in NOLA. Local author. There were multiple water stained copies in a sea of crisply bound new fiction so I took notice. Like they’d had a box of them in the basement the last two decades, and when they sold a couple, they’d haul out some more and restock the shelf. I enjoyed reading while in New Orleans. While not everything stands up, I give it credit for being an antecedent of stories with similar literary devices that have become hackneyed from overuse in recent years. I’ll send you my copy if you’d like.
December 6, 2010
This book would have rated much higher for me if it had been historically sound and truly a historically based book of fiction. There were some plot twists that did not quite set right with me. I was also not completely taken by either of the main characters (Jack or Rhys.) Deception is deception. The only truly interesting thing is it's setting in New Orleans. Oh well. Next.
March 7, 2008
Chock full of detail about Southern art (though often given through an exposition dump of monologue), but the "racial tension" thread woven throughout feels heavy on white guilt and weak on substance.
October 10, 2009
Planned as a fun summer read and it was just that. New Orleans flavor, lots of fun with regional southern painters, but an ending that didn't make sense. Great characterizations, though.
January 6, 2011
Pretty darn good, but My Juliet is a better book by this guy.
May 19, 2016
very interesting. loved that it was set in New Orleans. Good story, lots of twists
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 31, 2008
It wasn't a bad read, but for some reason I felt like I had read this same story before.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews