The Lost Glass Plates of Wilfred Eng - Hardcover

Orton, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582430233 ISBN 13: 9781582430232

Publisher: Counterpoint, 1999

Synopsis

Robert Armour, a Seattle photo dealer and art historian with a failing career, discovers a collection of long-lost glass negatives by a great Chinese-American photographer, and enlists the aid of art hustler Parker Lange to help him cash in on his discovery

About this title

About the Author

Thomas Orton manages Second Story Bookstore in Seattle.

Reviews

A man whose life has gone off course attempts to redeem his reputation by unraveling a mystery about a renowned landscape photographer in this thought-provoking, sophisticated first novel. Photograph dealer and art historian Robert Armour was disgraced after he unwittingly sold fake Edward Weston photographs, and when the scandal was revealed, he was forced to sell his humble yet respected San Francisco gallery. Along with his life work went his honor and self-confidence, and now he's moved to Seattle to start over, piecing together a new life haphazardly consulting, writing, lecturing and looking for romance. In the basement of his difficult, wealthy client Judith Lund, he happens upon a priceless cache of five original negatives from the work of "one of the fathers of American photography," Chinese-American photographer Wilfred Eng, dated 1874. Armour sees a chance to get back in the art game, this time with the real goods. His scheme requires cunning, and ultimately scheming, as he tries to enlist the right people to get the plates out of Judith's hands without her realizing how valuable they are. Part of the value of the plates lies in their ability to confirm a long-suspected affair between Eng and Ellen McFarland, the upper-class Caucasian child bride of Eng's benefactor. Excerpts from McFarland's diaries, interspersed throughout the novel, generate little of the shocking interracial "19th century scandal" Orton seems to be after. A surprise is revealed in the romantic twists of fate in Ellen's life, and Eng's burden of despair buries him, if not his legacy. Orton orchestrates these histories to echo protagonist Armour's contemporary struggle with ambition, disappointments and love. The narrative, rife with penetrating images, deftly wheels between the deal making and subterfuge of the modern-day art market and a haunting 19th-century epistolary soul-searching. This is a stimulating, literate story of the corrupting or redeeming powers of both art and artifice. (Oct.) FYI: Orton manages Second Story Books in Seattle.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An intricately plotted, very interesting first novel that intermittently echoes both Gaddis's The Recognitions and Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman while patiently tracing a disgraced artist's arduous path toward some sort of authenticity in his personal life. Seattle photographer (and art historian) Robert Armour unwittingly committed fraud when he brokered the sale of several erotic photographs falsely represented to him as the work of Edward Weston. A chance to restore his reputation arises when Robert discovers, in the home of ``rich no-talent'' amateur painter Judith Lund, a set of photographic plates he instantly recognizes as the work of Chinese-American master Wilfred Eng, a revered landscape photographer whose deepest energies had been dedicated to ``portraying the racial imbalance in America.'' The negatives that Robert has stumbled onto are nudes, studies of Ellen McFarland, the young wife of a San Francisco millionaireand, as had been previously disclosed, in a titillating ``scholarly'' volume (Love Diary of a San Francisco Lady), Wilfred Eng's lover. Orton's tricky narrative deftly balances the intrigues into which Robert's scheme to market the negatives quickly plunges himand which also involve Robert's divorced Diane Mays and her young son ``Budge,'' a duplicitous colleague (Parker Lange) and his twin mistresses, the wrathful Judith, and the profit-motivated Eng descendantsagainst the plaintive testimony of Ellen McFarland's candid meditative outpourings (of which there's rather more than initially meets the eye, so to speak), and the eventually revealed truth about Wilfred Eng's real feelings toward the wife of a plutocrat who represented everything the reformer in Eng had hated. A clever, highly informed dramatization of the truth that Robert Armour thinks only he understands: ``If old photography taught any lesson it was that no one could live without the past, even if they [sic] wanted to.'' An unusual and beguiling debut performance. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Meet Robert Armour, an art historian who has discovered an affair between famous photographer Wilfred Eng and Ellen McFarland, the wife of Eng's patron and foster father. The evidence consists of negatives of photographs that Eng once took of Ellen, some of which are nudes, and it motivates Armour to research the lives of Eng, Ellen, and Ellen's husband, Joseph. As Armour delves into the historical documents concerning Eng and Ellen, he discovers a passionate affair that parallels his own relationship with his lover, Diane. Unfortunately, Armour's greed leads him to endanger his own career and his relationship with Diane when he becomes involved in a scheme to make money from the negatives without the knowledge of their rightful owner. Orton's well-written novel is a solid debut effort, distinguished by quite a number of surprising twists, and emotionally engaging throughout. Bonnie Johnston

Robert Armour, a washed-up scholar and gallery owner, accidentally discovers a set of glass plates by 19th-century Chinese American photographer Wilfred Eng. The negatives reveal nude portraits of Ellen McFarland, the wife of a prominent industrialist. These plates support the unsubstantiated speculation that the two had an affairArevealed here in a series of love lettersAand are worth millions on the art market. In his attempt to cash in on the plates, Armour becomes involved with unscrupulous art dealers and risks losing the trust of the woman he loves and of her son. In a series of ruthless events, the plates are destroyed, and Armour is forced to determine the value he places on art and love. This debut novel offers a compelling narrative rich with metaphor and memorable characters. Recommended for all collections.ADavid A. Beron?, Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1582430233
• ISBN 13: 9781582430232
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 245