Bless the Thief - Hardcover

Wall, Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 060960158X ISBN 13: 9780609601587

Publisher: Crown, 1998

Synopsis

A first novel of remarkable ingenuity, Bless the Thief is a fast-paced literary mystery involving a secret society, art forgery, and the Hindenburg disaster.

Born to an American mother and a British father, Tom Lynch lives with his mother in America until she sends him off to his appointed guardian in England, Patrick Grimshaw. Grimshaw becomes a surrogate father to Tom, who never knew his real father, and he inducts Tom into the mysterious Delaquay Society, an organization based on the works of Alfred Delaquay, a book illustrator of considerable genius and perversity. The books Delaquay illustrated were produced by hand, seldom in editions of more than one, and their reproduction or sale is prohibited by the Society. As its youngest-ever English secretary, Tom becomes increasingly involved with the Delaquay Society, until a breach of the Society's conventions of secrecy blows apart its hermetic and obsessively closed world and he is caught up in the resulting chaos. As the manner of his life begins to exact a heavy toll, so the Society takes its own terrible revenge, and Tom Lynch comes finally to understand who he really is and where he came from.

About this title

About the Author

Alan Wall was born in Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire and was educated there and at Pembroke College, Oxford. His previous book, Jacob, written in verse and prose, was short-listed for the Hawthornden Prize. Since 1994 he has written regularly for The Spectator, Agenda, and The Jewish Quarterly. He is married with three children and lives in London.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Bless the Theif

"Full of passion, charged with a sense of the transforming
power of art and with the reality of good and evil. It is an
impressive and unusual debut."
The Observer

"Elegantly written and intriguing."
--The Literary Review

"Wall's writing can be luminous in its clarity; and Tom's
descent into his own fin-de-siècle hell of alcoholism
and forgery are superbly done."
--The Spectator

"An ambitiously twisty intellectual adventure....Profundities--real ones--survive felicitously and well inside an often
sordid tale of mystery and high squalor."
--Kirkus Reviews

From the Inside Flap

l of remarkable ingenuity, Bless the Thief is a fast-paced literary mystery involving a secret society, art forgery, and the Hindenburg disaster.<br><br>Born to an American mother and a British father, Tom Lynch lives with his mother in America until she sends him off to his appointed guardian in England, Patrick Grimshaw. Grimshaw becomes a surrogate father to Tom, who never knew his real father, and he inducts Tom into the mysterious Delaquay Society, an organization based on the works of Alfred Delaquay, a book illustrator of considerable genius and perversity. The books Delaquay illustrated were produced by hand, seldom in editions of more than one, and their reproduction or sale is prohibited by the Society. As its youngest-ever English secretary, Tom becomes increasingly involved with the Delaquay Society, until a breach of the Society's conventions of secrecy blows apart its hermetic and obsessively closed world and he is caught up in the resulting chaos. As the manner of his life begins

Reviews

Witty, fascinating explorations of the nature of identity and authenticity percolate throughout this literary tale of faith, forgery and disinformation in art and life. Young Tom Lynch never knew his father, a scientist lost in the 1937 explosion of the Hindenburg. At age 11 he is sent away by his unloving mother to public school in England. There he begins to follow in his father's footsteps, studying religion, art and literature, and becoming ?with the encouragement of the kindly headmaster who is his guardian?fascinated with the work of an obscure 19th-century illustrator, Delaquay. Tom is inducted into the secretive Delaquay Society, which is dedicated to keeping the artist's works from being sold, mechanically reproduced or otherwise displayed outside their membership. While studying at Oxford and working as the society's archivist, Tom becomes obsessed. In his quest to penetrate Delaquay's sensibility, Tom plunges into Rimbaudian chemical excesses that ultimately threaten his life. In the process, he masters the artist's style, becoming a gifted forger, and also discovers dark secrets in his own history to match the perversity of Delaquay and his legacy. Poet Wall (Jacob) fills the novel with arch commentary on art, literature, history and philosophy, all wrapped around an entertaining quasi-Dickensian plot. His oblique approach to mysteries (of both plot and the human heart) makes for an intriguing, entertaining fiction debut that has already met with deserved acclaim in England and Germany.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

English Wall debuts with an ambitiously twisty intellectual adventure especially good for those smitten byand maybe versed inthe traditions of decadence in art and poetry rooted in the end of the last century. Life isnt so happy for Tom Lynch after his British father is lost in the 1937 burning of the Hindenburg, especially when his New Jersey mothervain, shallow, resentfulso much prefers her new boyfriend over her son. But right after WWII, Tom finds himself sent off to prep school in England, where hes virtually adopted by the schools fiercely principled (and fiercely Catholic) head, Patrick Grimshaw. Grimshaw introduces Catholic Tom to the long, rancorous, often sectarian history of the Yorkshire moorsand introduces him to something more as well by giving him a copy of Paradise Lost created and illustrated by the artist Alfred Delaquay. Delaquay, a mix of Baudelaire in the depraved and Blake in the visionary, issued his illustrated works in editions of single copies as a protest, in part, against modern philistinism and lack of high principle; and now just to receive one of themthe Dante, Milton, or Blakerequires becoming a member of the secret Delaquay Society and upholding its truths forever, including the vow never ever to gain a penny from Delaquay. When Tom goes to Oxford, though, to study art, his own spiral into drink and compromise doesnt take longnor does his expulsion from the Society, once he breaks the code by paying cash1,000 lbs.for the Delaquay Baudelaire. Nothing now will keep himnot even the love of piercingly brilliant, brave, beautiful Rachel Fein, lecturer at Oxfordfrom falling further into depravity in London, even his becoming, in cahoots with a truly amoral and wonderfully limned gallery owner, the producer himself of dozens of fake Delaquays. What awaits tormented Tom in the end, if heavier in plot than in psychology, will displease only few. Profunditiesreal onessurvive felicitously and well inside an often sordid tale of mystery and high squalor. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The mysterious power of a turn-of-the-nineteenth-century illustrator and the secret society that harbors his works is the conceit of this first-person narrative. Tom Lynch is mesmerized by the dark eroticism of Delaquay's art, and he slips into the life of the Delaquay Society explosively, echoing the death of his father in the Hindenberg conflagration. What we hear primarily is the voice of Tom spiraling into alcoholism, fueled by the emotional hole left by his parents and the ever more exacting forgeries he makes of Delaquay's work. There are many lectures about art and creativity that Wall allows his characters to utter in their roles as instructors, gallery owners, and painters. The spirals include tricks of plot, too, that enable Tom to find and lose and find and lose his family, and remain injured and unloving. This deeply atmospheric novel won't please everyone, but it is full of a miasma that Wilde, Baudelaire, and Beardsley would have instantly recognized. GraceAnne A. DeCandido

When young American Tom Lynch is sent to a Yorkshire boarding school, his mentor and protector, Dr. Grimshaw, introduces him to the art of the 19th-century artist Delaquay, setting off a sordid lifelong obsession that will bring Tom to the edges of hell. As an art student at Oxford, Tom gains exclusive entrance into the Delaquay Society, a shadowy organization dedicated to preserving the works of the notorious artist. Despite the provision that Delaquay's haunting and tormented limited-edition illustrations may never be sold or reproduced, Tom begins creating masterly forgeries, sinking deeper into a web of lies. Poet Wall's enigmatic first novel follows Tom's descent into alcoholism and reckless debauchery as he slowly uncovers the hidden secrets of his family's past. At times convoluted and ponderous, his work is best suited to large public libraries with a highly literate clientele.?Christine Perkins, Jackson Cty Lib. Svcs, Medford, OR
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 060960158X
• ISBN 13: 9780609601587
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 211