Exposed

Starred review from April 8, 2019
Blondel’s captivating second novel (following The 6:41 from Paris) tracks an aging high school English teacher’s strange relationship with a famous young painter. Louis Claret, approaching 60, lives alone in a small, cold apartment in his provincial French city. His ex-wife, Anne, amicably divorced him years earlier and is happily remarried; his two adult daughters have moved away. Claret’s life changes when he is invited to Alexandre Laudin’s art opening. Laudin, a local celebrity whose painting has achieved national attention, was Claret’s student, but Claret barely remembers him. Laudin invites a surprised Claret to his apartment, shows him a stunning new sequence of triptychs, and makes an unusual offer: he’d like Claret to pose. Claret agrees, and each time he is painted, Blondel reveals more of his past through beautiful, italicized sequences. The experience lets him dwell on a life of roads not taken and of regret mingled with beauty. All along, Laudin reveals his true self, and eventually, Claret is given the chance to strip bare. The novel flies by with gentle humor, but it also poses complex questions about the meaning of art and sexuality, and offers an elegiac look at late middle age. Claret’s evolution is irresistible, and the story’s fundamental kindness sets it apart.

April 1, 2019
A short philosophical novel about art, time, and memory. Narrator Louis Claret finds himself at a melancholy point in his life. He's divorced from his wife, Anne, and his two daughters are grown and living far away. Claret has for many years been an English teacher in a French lycée, a career he no longer finds particularly interesting or challenging. Out of the blue, Alexandre Laudin, a former student, invites him to the opening of an art show. Although Laudin is an up-and-coming artist who is starting to develop an international reputation, he has never been particularly close to his former teacher, and he has an agenda in arranging their reconnection: He wants to paint Claret's portrait. Claret is both mystified and intrigued by this request, and he shows up at Laudin's studio for multiple sessions. As the artist continues to develop a series of sketches leading up to a portrait (actually three--he decides to make a triptych), an intimacy grows between them, one with erotic overtones. Louis finds his life beginning to change in bewildering but significant ways. For one thing, his perceptions become more aesthetically inclined. In looking at his kitchen table, for example, he notices that "the cups, spoons, and pack of sugar are there, pointless. They would make a magnificent still life." He also finds himself becoming more possessive--even jealous--of the artist, feeling "like some jilted mistress begging for attention." This is a quiet novel, one in which most of the events are internal. Blondel allows us to enter Claret's mind and heart, to feel the sadness and lost moments of his life. When Claret finally confronts the finished portrait, his emotions are intense, complex, and ambivalent, and it's clear that through the process of aesthetic transformation he's reached a new awareness about his life. A subtle and at times radiant read.

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May 15, 2019
Newly divorced and nearing retirement, French high-school teacher of English literature Louis is surprised by an invitation to the art opening of his former student Alexandre, now an up-and-coming painter. He attends and is further surprised by the undivided attention of the event's star. Louis barely remembers Alexandre as a student, while it becomes clear that the impression he made on Alexandre was deep and everlasting. Alexandre asks Louis to sit for a portrait, which soon becomes a triptych. Under the gentle intensity of Alexandre's gaze and questioning, Louis recalls moments from his life before career, marriage, and kids took over, with a vividness that shocks him and inspires him to write again. The loss of the youth Louis remembers is really the loss of its possibilities; can he?can anyone?come to terms with that? While the setup, of a middle-aged man who finally sees himself only when a younger man sees him, could become clich�d, it doesn't. Blondel (The 6:41 to Paris, 2015) imbues Louis' story with the quietly fascinating, understated, true-feeling complications of real life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)