Stolen Beauty

January 1, 2017
Two haute bourgeois Austrian-Jewish women see their world upended by fin de siecle libertinism, the onset of the Nazi regime, and the theft of all they hold most dear.Sparking off the same source material as the film Woman in Gold (2015), Albanese conjures the voices of Adele Bloch-Bauer and her niece Maria Altmann, whose lives overlapped briefly but whose biographies are forever conjoined by a work of art. Here, as in life, handsome, clever, and rich Adele is an intellectually famished, aspiring salon hostess whose tolerant husband, an uncultured but benevolent sugar-beet magnate, indulges her interest in the philosophical debates of the day (though the novel imposes no burden on readers to wrestle with them). She eventually persuades him to commission Gustav Klimt--monk-cloaked, lupine, and a notorious seducer with multiple illegitimate children--to do her portrait. It takes him three years to complete. While conscious of ugly talk rippling through the Ringstrasse--a failed and embittered applicant to Vienna's Art Academy, who will one day come to power in Germany, is glimpsed briefly at one of Adele's salon meetings--Adele is forced to pull back from their potentially scandalous relationship for reasons less social than private. By turns breathless and rueful at the memory of the erstwhile affair--"His gaze was intoxicating. I'm embarrassed to remember how little it took to keep me talking"--Adele will take up other causes and proteges. One is her young niece Maria, whose story commences in 1938 and makes for a gritty, suspenseful counterpoint (with a few historical liberties taken) to the lip-smacking linzer torte of Adele's bildungsroman. Less worldly than her aunt (who was long dead by the time Hitler comes to power), Maria is shocked when the Gestapo turns up at her home to oversee the transfer of Jewish property into Aryan hands. But she quickly readjusts her inner compass, proving wily and doughty in ways Aunt Adele would approve. Taking the lead from her husband--an amateur opera singer hooked on female adoration--she organizes their escape, not a hot-second too soon. Though given shorter shrift here than the romance/suspense plots, Maria's nervy and unprecedented campaign to seek restitution for her family's looted art collection--including the shimmering Klimt portrait of Adele hidden in plain sight in Vienna's most prestigious gallery--provides a satisfying coda: "The Nazis were inside my uncle's palais....If you're lucky, life teaches you to survive." Fans of romantic suspense with an art historical bent will appreciate the vigor of Albanese's reimagining of the family saga behind the masterpiece long regarded as Vienna's Mona Lisa.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from February 1, 2017

Maria Altmann was a "love-struck newlywed" when Adolf Hitler invaded Austria, and with her opening sentence, Albanese (The Miracles of Prato) draws readers into a world of glamour, art, intrigue, power and fear. Maria and opera singer husband Fritz soon learn their money and talent are of little use to the Third Reich, especially with Jewish blood in the family. Even more compelling is the interwoven story of Maria's aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, muse to artist Gustav Klimt and a woman ahead of her time in turn-of-the-century Vienna. Klimt's commissioned gold-leaf portrait of Adele is of high interest to the Nazis and will inspire Maria to find inner strength to survive the war and save her family's legacy. VERDICT In this complex yet utterly readable novel, historical characters are brought to life against the setting of a city on the verge of artistic greatness and societal collapse. Albanese treats thorny moral issues with clarity and depth. Fans of Philippa Gregory, Tracy Chevalier, and those who enjoyed the film Woman in Gold starring Helen Mirren won't be able to put it down.--Christine Barth, Scott Cty. Lib. Syst., IA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2016
In fin de siecle Vienna, unconventional possibilities abound, intellectually and romantically, when wealthy, beautiful, Jewish Adele Bloch-Bauer meets painter Gustav Klimt. In an alternating 1930s story line, the brutality of the Anschluss shatters the idyllic existence of Maria Altmann, Adele's niece. The titular stolen beauty is Klimt's famous portrait, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, looted by the Nazis. Facing uncertainty and loss, the women are connected through the painting.The novel's focal points are the characterizations of the two women, one born strong and the other struggling to be. Unlike similar women's war fiction (e.g., Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale, 2015), this novel profits from the added emotional level of this being, essentially, a true story. The real Maria Altmann was dauntless in restoring to her family that which had been taken from them; the historical Adele Bloch-Bauer was exceptional as the queen of Vienna salon society. Best read with a tablet or computer handy to study the paintings, Albanese's novel will appeal to readers interested in such themes as love, self-discovery, and women's empowerment and to fans of the historical, art-based fiction of Susan Vreeland and Tracy Chevalier.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)