I enjoyed The Art Forger and expected to like this story too. However, the main character was not that interesting to me and I struggled to continue reading to the end. The supporting cast of characters didn’t seem real ... even though they were based on real people. The artists felt like stereotypes and Eleanor Roosevelt’s conversations seemed too simplistic. I also found it hard to believe after going through so much to find her family, she didn’t pursue her brother. Overall, a bit disappointing. ( )

Rating 4.5

When coupled with the author's engaging narrative, her expansive knowledge of the art world creates an immersive, engaging experience much like it was with "The Art Forger".

We first meet Danielle, a staff member at Christie's Art Auction gallery who comes across some early Abstract Expressionist paintings from the 40s. As she researches their background she realizes they were painted by her great aunt Alizee, who grew up in France and moved to New York early in her career. Alizee became part of a team of artists hired to paint murals by a government program. Working side by side with the likes of Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Mark Rathko and others their art caused a stir due to its groundbreaking style. Across the ocean, the Nazi's had begun their ethnic cleansing push causing concern for Alizee's family.

Toggling back and forth from 1940 to 2015, Danielle's investigation into Alizee's history grows worrisome when she learns she'd entered mental health ward and suddenly disappears. We learn that Alizee and her colleagues become outraged with Breckinridge Long, a member of FDRs cabinet in charge of immigration. Parallel, Eleanor Roosevelt visits the muralists and is captured by Alizee's art; soon after a close relationship develops. What's fascinating is the parallel between FDR's administration and Trump's due to their 'immigrants will steal American jobs' mentality.

Learning that her family's attempts to get visas became hopeless, Alizee learns that Long undermined Congressional immigration law by going behind FDR's back. Making Eleanor aware of what she'd discovered, the First Lady's appeal to FDR fails. As the Nazi invasion deepens, and the US refuses to allow immigrants, Alizee's emotional stability wavers. When she finally has a breakdown, she's taken to the Bloom Sanitarium and disappears a couple of days later.

Well paced, each chapter provides twists and turns which when added to letters builds momentum. And with each twist, reader engagement deepens. Evocative, passionate and revealing, its immersive quality and historical relevance makes for an enjoyable reader experience.

Shapiro has a unique style, does copious research and engages with believable characters. Highly recommended for those who enjoy the world of art, history and intrigue ( )

This book employs the dual timeline device to solve the mysterious disappearance of a young female artist in 1940. The detective work is done by her niece in 2015. While I was interested in the subject matter of art history and the plight of the refugees fleeing Hitler in WWII, I found it difficult to become engrossed in this novel, as the pacing is a bit uneven. I also discovered a personal preference to avoid too much dialogue and involvement by real people, in this case Eleanor Roosevelt, and artists Rothko, Krasner, and Pollack, as it is hard for me to speculate on what they would actually have said and done. The author took a few liberties with timing of historical events, and there were several convenient coincidences. You may like this book if you enjoy art history, particularly abstract expressionism, or historical fiction based upon WWII. ( )

The mid-century American abstract expressionist artists may not be my forté in terms of style, but Shapiro’s novel was so engaging that I couldn’t put it down. The book weaves together two intertwined narratives, following a (very fictional) member of the artistic group during the late 1930s and her grand-niece, who is an art appraiser/researcher for Christie’s auction house. The modern storyline was interesting and would easily appeal to the genealogist crowd, who would revel in the historical mystery that Danielle is trying to uncover, but what got me was the historical narrative. Shapiro paints a vivid portrait of New York during the late 1930s, covering politics, social unrest, and the artistic movements that were slowly coming to be known in the new American schools of thought through her characters and scenes. The events precluding and during World War II have been trotted out ad nauseum at this point in the historical fiction market, so her focus on the American perspective leant this novel a fresh breath. The carefully written protagonist, Alizée Benoit, provides further tension to the narrative, as she is firmly entrenched in her life in New York as an artist, but hears the growing clarion of war in Europe far more acutely than her American friends, since she still has a number of Jewish family members in France. As grand-niece Danielle explores Alizée’s story we are frustrated alongside her, knowing that there is more to discover but that much of history (unless carefully documented) can and is lost to time, but thankfully Shapiro concludes the story with some carefully placed accidental discoveries that wrap things up neatly by the final pages. Alizée Benoit may be a fictional creation, as is her story, but it gives us an interesting view into the past, and opens up some questions about the gaps in the historical record that I think are definitely worth exploring! ( )

The Muralist is riveting, haunting and tragic till the end when it gives a ray of hope and leaves the reader satisfied. It also provides a slight insight into what goes on in the minds of the isolationist political leaders calling for ban on refugees in the present day and how it is not much different from history.

Before America enters WWII, Alizee Benoit, an American Jew is working as an artist with the Works Progress Administration and is friends with Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Lee Krasner before they became popular as the early Abstract Expressionists. Here, Alizee is the one who is painting in abstract and influences each of them and their painting styles. She is also haunted by the fact that her whole family is in France, just before the German occupation. The roundups and arrests of Parisian Jews has begun and she is frightened. She tries her level best to secure visas for her family but is unsuccessful. She also enlists the help of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (who incidentally loves and purchases her paintings) but even Eleanor cannot convince the President to allow more refugees into the country because he is running for re-election and cannot afford to go against the public sentiment and support of isolationists like Breckenridge Long, Joe Kennedy and Charles Lindbergh. Alizee even decides to paint murals with a political point instead of the original commissioned artwork that is to be installed because she comes to believe that the more people who view and understand the pain and devastation depicted in it, the more they will be able to empathize with the refugees and give them safe haven. When nothing works, she even becomes a party to an assassination attempt on a powerful politician, because she assumes naively that eliminating him would somehow quench the hatred (call it anti-Semitism) of the masses and would put a stop to the wastage of visas which in turn will save thousands of innocents. Through all this, she is also devolving, has been suffering from depersonalization and finally has a breakdown just before she goes missing forever.

Seventy five years later, Alizee’s grand-niece Dani Abrams finds some murals that come her way for appraisal and she is stunned to find them very similar in style and emotion to the only two surviving paintings of her aunt. As Alizee is an unknown commodity, Dani is forbidden by her employer from digging into her aunt’s history. But she invests all her remaining time to this endeavor, hanging onto any thread she can find and finally arriving in Paris to confront the horrors that were perpetrated on her family. This journey also becomes a turning point in her life and sets her on a path to finally fulfil her destiny to be a painter.

These two remarkable women and their lives are great to read about and especially Alizee’s struggles with her art, family and her mind are truly tragic. However, the most important theme that lingers in the mind is how politicians then and now, use their words and fear psychosis to incite a group of people to hate another and play political football with the lives of hundreds of thousands of refugees. They are always going to use every tool at their disposal to gain votes and the gullible voters will get hoodwinked by the propaganda and forget the things that separates humans from other species – thinking capacity and morality. The book also serves as a reminder of the part of American history that many would want to forget – that America too was in someway complicit in the 6 million deaths, by virtue of being unresponsive.

Overall, this is a great book – an excellent amalgamation of fictional with real, history with contemporary and art with politics and also offers a unique American perspective of the Holocaust. ( )