THE DARK CLUE - Softcover

James Wilson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571202713 ISBN 13: 9780571202713

Publisher: faber and faber, 2001

Synopsis

Inspired by the Victorian sensation novel, James Wilson's first novel, The Dark Clue, is a portrait of the age in all of its staggering extremes, as inventive and multifaceted as the oil paintings of J. M. W. Turner, the elusive genius who lies at the thriller's heart. When Walter Hartright -- the sheltered, upright character from Wilkie Collins's classic mystery novel The Woman in White -- is hired to write a biography of England's great Romantic landscape artist, he discovers the "dark clue" hidden deep within Turner's brilliant paintings. Obsessed with reconstructing a life that is shrouded in mystery, Walter seeks help from a Dickensian assemblage including the visionary John Ruskin, the haughty aristocrats, the desperate, and the criminal. Soon enough, Walter uncovers evidence of unspeakable depravity, but can the truth behind Turner's myth be freed from a rapidly expanding web of conspiracy? Only Walter's capable and loving Halcombe can hope to rescue him from the harrowing downward spiral that follows. James Wilson's first book, The Earth Shall Weep, established him as a groundbreaking historian and evocative storyteller. His debut novel plumbs the myth of creative genius, offering a startling commentary on truth seeking and recording history. In the tradition of John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman and Charles Palliser's The Quincunx, The Dark Clue is a masterful fiction debut from one of the original voices of our time.

About this title

About the Author

James Wilson has written plays, TV documentaries (including the award-winning Savagery and the American Indian for the BBC) and a critically-acclaimed history of Native Americans, The Earth Shall Weep. His three previous novels were The Dark Clue, The Bastard Boy and, most recently, The Woman in the Picture, described by Kate Saunders in The Times as 'a multi-layered, deeply absorbing and entertaining novel'.

From Publishers Weekly

This debut novel by Wilson, acclaimed nonfiction author of The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America, is an evocative and sophisticated literary thriller set in 1850s Victorian England. Taking his cue from an archetypal Victorian suspense novel, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, Wilson composes an epistolary fiction in letters and diary entries, reviving Collins's classic characters Walter Hartright and his sister-in-law Marion Halcombe. Here, Hartwright and Halcombe are partners in a search to uncover the truth about elusive Romantic landscape artist J.M.W. Turner. Commissioned by the royal Lady Eastlake to write a definitive biography of the misunderstood artist, the duo meet members of the British elite, eccentric and reserved, all of whom have conflicting memories of the reclusive Turner. The upright Hartright discovers a "dark clue" in Turner's paintings, and he becomes obsessed with unraveling the myth and mystery of a man so many people have misunderstood. Art history lovers will take pleasure in the fascinating details of Turner's squalid upbringing and his early years at the Royal Academy. Wilson's exacting, detailed descriptions of Victorian England from Dickensian slums to the gilded drawing rooms of royalty make for vivid storytelling. The tale's pace is stately, but readers tuned to the frequency of 19th-century novels will appreciate Wilson's measured tone and deft treatment of Turner's murky history and Collins's exquisite legacy.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: faber and faber
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0571202713
• ISBN 13: 9780571202713
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400