The Anatomy Lesson

At times, multiple narrators can be the best thing that can happen to an audiobook. When a story is told from multiple points of view, using a narrator for each one can both enhance the story and make it easier for a listener to follow. For this strategy to work well, though, all the narrators must be of equally high caliber; a disparity in narrator skill can be off-putting, as is the case here. Although most of the cast is quite effective in telling the story of the painting that first brought Rembrandt international acclaim, the performances as a whole are uneven, thus distracting from Siegal's otherwise fascinating story. J.L.K. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

February 3, 2014
Siegal (A Little Trouble With the Facts) sets her splendid, gory second novel in 1623 in Amsterdam, where a thief's execution occasions a celebration, evoking "bloodlust" throughout the city on "Justice Day." Some of the narrators are famous men: Rembrandt, who painted Anatomical Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, on which the novel is based, and Descartes, who is "âsearch for the soul in the body.'" Siegal gives voice not only to artists and philosophers, but also to the condemned man Adriaen Adriaenszoon, among others. Adriaen pleads, "âhere is no evil in my breast.'" The evil, Siegal hints, might well lie in a place where Justice Day is received with such pleasure. Adriaen's pregnant lover, Flora, is the only person clamoring for possession of the man's body out of loveâto give it a "Christian burial" after she fails to convince a clerk at the town hall to issue a pardon. Alive, Adriaen's body is "beaten and branded" by his Calvinist father and by several Dutch towns. As a mere object, people want his corpse "for science" and "for art." "All of us sought his flesh," Rembrandt muses. Through masterful use of subtle details, embroidered into beautiful writing, Siegal suggests that art and violence often intertwine. Agent: Marly Rusoff, Marly Rusoff and Associates.