French Girl with Mother

August 15, 2016
The protagonist of Ollestad’s ambitious but flawed novel (following his 2009 memoir, Crazy for the Storm) is a struggling artist dabbling in danger for the sake of his art. Once hailed by the famous painter Ed Ruscha, Nathan Woods is now adrift in Paris; an old mentor back home told him, after bland reviews of his latest show, that he had “too much college and not enough life.” Roaming the streets looking for inspiration, Nathan meets Anais, a volatile young French woman, and agrees to follow her to her family’s chateau. There they begin a fraught erotic relationship, which ignites Nathan’s creative juices. He begins to sketch her. When Anais’s mother and father arrive at the chateau, Nathan senses that things are going to get weird. And they do. The whole family keeps secrets: erotic secrets, as well as business secrets, and they inflict pain on one another in a way that both repulses Nathan and invigorates his work. In addition, Anais’s father and an uncle in the chateau next door are involved in smuggling works of art to the Middle East, and when the FBI shows up with an ultimatum, Nathan is caught up in a scheme that has him skiing over the Alps with a couple of Egon Schiele paintings, threatening his career and his life. Ollestad tries to plumb the depths of art and the nature of inspiration, and he attempts to describe a great deal of sexual congress in emotional, affecting terms, but with little success.

A young American artist gets tangled in the erotic web of a Frenchwoman and her family.Despite his technical precision, Nathan's lack of creative vision as a painter limits his success. Struggling to find inspiration, he treks through Europe in search of a muse. When he crosses paths with Anais and she invites him back to her family's country chateau to paint her, his vision of her leads not only to bold sketches and portraits, but also to the start of an intense sexual relationship. After a few days, Anais' parents join them at the chateau. Her mother, Sophie, is coolly critical of Nathan and his relationship with Anais; nevertheless, when asked to paint a portrait of Sophie, he finds himself attracted to her. Drawn to the undercurrent of sexual competition between mother and daughter, he works on his own masterwork in secret while Anais' father and uncle pull him into an art forgery scheme that attracts the interest of authorities. All of this, of course, leads to tragedy, and Nathan must choose whether to save his paintings or his relationship. The first half of the novel is finely wrought; Ollestad (Crazy for the Storm, 2009) builds a delicate tension between the characters, exposing their raw desire and exploring the concept of artistic inspiration. Despite a few instances of overly complicated writing (for example: "Was she a goldmine? Or a maze that ends in a cul-de-sac or at a cliff?"), the seeds of discord are expertly sown. Once the plot expands to include the forgery scheme and all of the drama that accompanies it, however, the novel loses that careful precision and descends into the realm of melodrama. A quietly tense and absorbing read when the emphasis is on the "erotic" rather than the "thriller." COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 15, 2016
When Nathan, an American artist, meets Anais in Paris, he knows he's found the muse that will give his overlooked paintings emotional power. Anais is a dynamo, uninhibited and confident, and Nathan is amazed when she invites him to paint her at her family's country estate. Days into their idyllic (and erotic) retreat, they are joined by Anais' parents, Jean Luc and Sophie. Nathan quickly finds himself ensnared in Jean Luc and Sophie's sexual manipulations when he's pressured to paint Sophie behind Anais' back. Betrayal piles upon betrayal as the paintings awaken Jean Luc's jealousy, and the visceral, competitive tension between Anais and Sophie creates a paranoid undercurrent that erupts in violence. It's not all seething atmosphere, though; Ollestad weaves in an art-smuggling angle that provides a twisty, action-filled conclusion. A unique, atmospheric literary thriller with a strong sense of place that will have appeal for fans of both Scandinavian crime fiction and psychological thrillers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)