Pictures at an Exhibition

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.

December 1, 2008
Longing and loss permeate Houghteling 's debut, which focuses on the world of Parisian art dealers before and after the Nazi occupation.

Between the wars, Daniel Berenzon was one of the most successful gallery owners in Paris, numbering Picasso and Matisse among his clients. His son Max, the engagingly modest narrator, is the victim of his father 's success. In 1939, the 19-year-old hopes to join his father in the business, but Daniel says no. The pampered youth, though knowledgeable, is not hungry enough, and he hires the beautiful young Rose Clment, a Louvre curator, as his latest apprentice. Max yearns for his father 's approval and Rose 's love throughout the novel, but he makes little headway. Rose is affectionate, but work always comes first, and during the occupation, while the Berenzons, assimilated Jews, are being sheltered by a Protestant farmer in central France, she remains in Paris and strives heroically to offset the Germans ' looting by becoming "a registry of lost art. " Houghteling has immersed herself in the history of the period, and her love of these paintings shines through. But though Rose 's story is the most dramatic, it is Max who 's front and center, and this makes for some awkwardness. Back in liberated Paris in 1944, Max sets his heart on tracking down his father 's paintings, all lost; his hopes are constantly dashed, but his search is exciting and the author is finely attuned to the dealers ' folkways, their sophistication sometimes masking collaboration with the enemy and outright thievery. It is not only the paintings that have gone missing; so too have thousands of deported Jews. Max is sheltered by a friendly Hasid, an Auschwitz survivor, and they both try to track down loved ones, but again there is some awkwardness as the author integrates the two searches. The ending, with a years-after epilogue, is a mess.

An uneven first novel.

(COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 1, 2009
In late 1930s Paris, Max Berenzon studies medicine but longs to be his father's apprentice at the city's most successful art gallery in Paris. In lieu of succeeding his father at the gallery, Max falls in love with his father's protégée, Rose. However, when World War II reaches Paris, the Berenzons must flee, hiding in the French countryside for the next four years and leaving the gallery's paintings behind in a vault. When the war is over, Max and his father return to Paris, only to find that all of the paintings have been looted. By staying on at the Louvre during the German occupation, Rose has been able to track the movement of many of the stolen paintings, and it becomes Max's mission to recover the lost artworks. Although the war has led to the loss of the paintings, it uncovers the great secret of Max's childhood. Houghteling received a Fulbright to study paintings that went missing during the war, and the detail shines through in this first novel, which effectively depicts the new reality for Jews in postwar Europe. Recommended for most libraries.Amy Ford, St. Mary's Cty. Lib., Lexington Park, MD

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2009
Weaving a fictitious Jewish family into historical figures of the Paris art world of the 1930s and 1940s, Houghteling humanizes the story of the Nazis systematic looting of Frances art treasures. Daniel Berenzon, who counts Matisse and Picasso among the artists he represents, routinely grills his son, Max, on the exhibits mounted in his prestigious Paris gallery, then steers the boy toward medical school since he considers Max lacking in business sense and too attached to paintings to let them go for profit. The Berenzons flee to the South of France during the occupation of Paris, returning to find the gallery a burned-out shell and hidden masterpieces gone, and it is Maxwith the help of his fathers apprentice, Rose Clement, whom he loveswho tries desperately to recover the stolen art as he uncovers a family secret. Rose, who works heroically to track the paintings in secret from her Nazi employers, is patterned after real-life curator Rose Valland, whose documentation helped repatriate thousands of paintings. Houghtelings vivid descriptions of paintings and their power add to the allure of this impressive debut novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)