Pictures at an Exhibition

After fleeing the Nazi occupation of Paris, Max Berenzon, son of a prominent art dealer, returns in 1944 to discover that his father's fabulous collection of fine art has been looted by the Germans. Max visits notable dealers, artists, and collectors in an attempt to locate the vanished treasures, and to find Rose Clément, the woman he loves. Max uncovers secrets that shake his already-devastated world. Mark Bramhall's reading is low-key and understated, yet intense and immediate. Bramhall's thoughtful performance makes Houghteling's austere prose feel like poetry--lyrical, eloquent, and controlled. Houghteling's well-researched details are poignant--sometimes heartbreaking--and fascinating, and Bramhall delivers all effectively, without pyrotechnics. Artfully conceived and beautifully narrated, this audiobook will capture the hearts and imaginations of listeners. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

November 17, 2008
A young French-Jewish man obsesses about taking over his father’s fine art dealership before WWII, and tries to locate its lost canvases in the war’s aftermath in Houghteling’s ambitious and satisfying debut novel. Halfhearted medical student Max Berenzon tries to impress upon his father, Daniel, that he should inherit the business, and spends the rest of his energy wooing Rose, the gallery assistant. But the war soon makes talk of the future a moot point, and the Berenzons survive the war in a cellar in the south of France. When father and son return to Paris, their gallery is empty, looted by the Nazis. In dirty postwar Paris, Max chases both the missing art and Rose, and though both his targets remain elusive and the gaping hole left by the roundup of French Jews is impossible to close, Max does shed light on his own family’s secret tragedy. Houghteling dazzlingly recreates the horrors of war, and it’s the small, smart details—a painting that was a sentimental family treasure turning up years later in an ordinary gallery; an offhanded anti-Semitic remark in a cafe—that make one uncommon family’s suffering all the more powerful.