The Talented Miss Farwell

★★★★★
Talk about living a double life. On one hand, Becky Farwell is a small town comptroller. She was pretty young when she started handling the financial responsibilities and management of her father’s small agricultural implements business, but she has always had a strong sense for numbers (though not the means to nurture that skill) and she’s kept her and her father afloat longer than expected. Now she’s worked her way up from mere bookkeeping in town hall to handling the entire town’s finances. It was all too easy. Fudge some receipts and invoices. Open accounts that no one bothered to verify the validity of. Take responsibility for projects others were all too willing to not tackle themselves, and there it was for show more her to take advantage. One small discrepancy started it all.. one double payment everyone overlooked gave her a few hundred dollars to finance a new addiction that eventually ballooned out of control.

On the other hand, she is Reba Farwell, extravagant art collector who seems to have limitless funds to participate in the unpredictable business of buying and selling art. She has a whirlwind lifestyle as Reba, and it isn’t easy or inexpensive to maintain her facade. Traveling often, wearing designer clothing, doing just about whatever it takes to get a foot in and getting hold of all (a collection must be complete, and it’s the ultimate thrill to track down and finally amass them all) the pieces she’s after.

Becky dreamt of something grander than what her small town has to offer, and she finds that as Reba in the fascinating world of art, not just the pieces and the mediums but also the value of art. It’s something she has to keep almost completely separate from her “real” life. Not even her closest friend has any idea of what she’s involved with. Becky had ambition that superseded what she knew and what was within her reach in her small town. She discovered an extravagance of such grand scale that was, until her newfound, illegitimate source of income, completely out of her reach. Unfortunately, she was never satisfied despite how much she acquired. Becky wound up depriving her town to satisfy her own selfish desires. She justified her actions and absolved herself of responsibility by re-paying when she could and still granting her city some festivities (if not keeping more important promises to certain departments and making all the necessary repairs). She was truly enthralled with the art, spending hours visiting, studying, researching.. she learned this world with even greater intensity than she might have any other that truly captivated her, in every detail and aspect.

You gotta love those small town checks and balances, huh? It seems completely incomprehensible nowadays with so many people needed to get anything done, especially in government, that one person would be able to manipulate a system so extensively. Maybe it was the small town trust. Maybe it was the complexity of the accounts.. Becky got away with something and it eventually got out of hand. A few hundred dollars turned into millions, and a seemingly innocent (though totally illegible) “borrowing” changed the art world. Becky was smart, though, with at least one contingency plan in place when her machinations were found out. It’s just amazing how far some people will go to protect themselves and how morals are suspended sometimes.

Told in sequence of Becky’s life from when she was a teenager to when she is caught for her mis-deeds, this was a quick read that shows how easily one can get caught up in something completely wrong even without any solid reason or resources to pursue such an extravagant venture. I know this story had the requisite “this is a work of fiction” disclaimer, but I still found myself wondering is this based on a true story? To me, I don’t know if it would have been worth it. I don’t know if there’s anything I’m so passionate about to risk as much as Becky did. Also, I was hoping for more drama with Becky flipping pieces for huge returns. I was hoping she’d be able to do more to re-pay her town (maybe that would have made her actions more palatable. Though embezzlement is always wrong, maybe if she had been able to return more than she borrowed..) rather than just deprive her town. Still though, this woman’s personality is fascinating. Her aptitude for math endeared her to me (because before calculus I thought I was good at math too. Ha!), and despite her recklessness and unethical behavior, I can see how she became enthralled with this new lifestyle and world.

Please note: I received an ARC of this book for free as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Thank you to and everyone who made that possible.

expected publication September 2020 / Custom House / 352 pages show less

If you were stuck in a dead-end town, but knew, from teenagehood, that you had what it took to get far, to succeed, even to make it big -- how would you do it? You have no resources to rely on, no way to get separate yourself from your family, your surroundings, and your very dull existence, and yet you push and push at the edges of your world, hoping that something would happen to propel you into a life of excitement and meaning.

This is Becky Farwell's plight. The answer to her dilemma, is unfortunately to take a downward spiral into embezzlement. How that plays out is the plot of the novel.

I sympathized with Becky's drive, and her talents, but without feeling deeply for the character, enough to care about what happens to her too show more greatly. The book seems like a science experiment, and thus almost feels like a novel of the naturalistic kind - take a girl of this type, put her in this situation, and let's see what happens.

Warning: this book is not a thriller, despite the cover, the nod to Highsmith, or the blurbs. It does however, propel the reader, insofar as I felt myself torn, at times, between sympathy for Becky and her innate abilities, and desire to see her get what she deserves. show less

Becky Farwell is City Comptroller in a little Illinois town down on luck. Reba Farwell is an art collector at the top of her game. Except that Reba and Becky are the same person, with Reba financing her lifestyle by skimming millions from Becky’s town accounts.

Tedrowe’s given us, in spite of the reference to The Talented Mr Ripley, not a sociopathic antihero, but an art-obsessed Midwest woman trying desperately to be sophisticated and worldly-wise. Advertised as a thriller, it’s not. Instead, it’s a story of a slow slide deeper and deeper into a hole from which she can’t escape, and how that slide takes everyone around her along for the ride.

The talented Miss Becky, Farwell, that is. Ambitious, with a natural penchant for numbers and calculations, blindsided by a hopeless obsession for high art. Small town girl with such cerebral tastes. It almost doesn’t seem fair. But the Talented Miss Farwell is a classic example of how our obsessions choose us, not the other way around. Once in an obsession’s grip, “just one more” is never enough, whether one knows it or not. And that is typically one’s undoing.
I knew within 2 pages this would be a great book with a well-drawn character I liked. Becky is a smart and serious kid, just her and her dad against the world, doing whatever it takes to save the farm and the equipment store in 1980s Midwest. Anyone who’s lived show more through the 80s remembers the recession, the end of America’s supremacy in the automobile industry, and the start of so many jobs being sent south of the border and overseas. Things were indeed grim. Becky’s mom died of breast cancer when Becky was 6, and Becky knew her dad was in decline; she took on the responsibility of handling the books and making equipment sales with dad’s permission. The girl was a natural with numbers and he knew it. She had a hustle doing math homework for 4 girl students. But between hard times and family loyalty, there was no way Becky was going to college, even if she did have a strong mentor in her corner, a math teacher who knew Becky was special and saw some of her own self in the girl. Becky could go to college later, she told herself. Her dad and the farm needed her now. So Pierson was where she stayed. Soon enough, Becky was working for the small rural town in finance. This is where the trouble started.
It takes a special kind of person to lead a double life and Becky led her seamlessly, working as Pierson’s youngest ever comptroller during the week and jetting off to Chicago and New York over the weekend to be a part of the high-end art scene. A complete novice, Becky didn’t know anything about art beyond an innate sense of what a good art piece was. She put herself in art spaces and learned how to buy and sell, smart, ambitious, and disinterested in the games art people play, she remained focused on the art and didn’t get sucked into the usual distractions: vicious gossip, sex, drugs.
The years went by and Becky (Reba to her art world associates) got quite good at what she called her Activity: falsifying invoices and using the money to purchase art and pay for her expensive other lifestyle. Poor Becky. She loved Pierson, her hometown. She always managed to find the extra funds the town needed to provide a good lifestyle and infrastructure. Until she doesn’t. Until she gets ahead of herself, and things spiral out of manageability.
To me, once I got halfway into this novel, the hook was how long she could keep it going and whether/how it would end. It was exciting and dreadful. I delayed finishing the book for several days because I didn’t want to look! Crazy, I know. I was pulling for Becky. I wanted her to succeed, not because I have anything against the art scene (I don’t) but because she really did care about her town and her family. If she’d been born into a different class, she could’ve been a legitimate high-end art dealer. But just as we can’t choose our obsessions, we can’t choose what class we’re born into. I pulled for the “hometown girl makes good” even though I knew she was doing wrong. Because if she could just get that one last print to complete the series, she could make back all the money it would take to return Pierson to solvency. Just one more… show less

The Talented Miss Farwell by Emily Gray Tedrowe is a subtle page-turner for the most part that doesn't seem like it has hold of you until you start to put it down, then it laughs maniacally and stays in your hands. Your results may vary.

I made the mistake of looking at some of the other reader reviews before writing this and while I disagreed with some and agreed with others (par for the course) I couldn't really fault the ones I disagreed with. Most of their complaints were not, in my opinion, about the strengths or weaknesses of this novel as a novel but more about the dynamics between that particular reader and the novel. Yes, it moves relatively methodically (some call it slow) particularly at the beginning, but I found that to be a show more positive here. Yes, the protagonist is a unique personality formed largely by her upbringing, though some feel that we didn't have enough to know her as a person. I felt I knew and understood her. So most of what others found lacking I found fulfilling.

It seemed to me that we as readers are asked to connect the dots ourselves, so where one person might feel we never got a fleshed out protagonist I thought knowing she lost her mother at birth, that she had responsibilities at home (and her father's business) that other kids didn't have, that having problems and solutions pop seemingly formed into her mind (at first math/accounting problems, then those same problems with an art element added) do indeed let me know who she is and why she is who she is. No, it isn't spelled out for us, we have to read actively, but the pieces are all there.

As the story moves on, I found myself less and less willing to put the book down. Did I like her? She is a fictional character, I neither like nor dislike her, just as I neither like nor dislike most people I don't know and engage with. Do I think I would want to know her? Oddly enough, yes, though I may well regret it.

I have a habit of mentally going off on tangents when reading, usually sparked by something I read and what thoughts unrelated to the plot enter my head. A chapter early on sent me thinking and even asking friends questions (my friends are very patient with me). It takes place at a Judds concert. Everything from what radio stations play what, to changing seats, even thinking about the future of the artists is included. I am not a country music fan (don't yell at me, I didn't say I disliked it, it just isn't in my top three music genres, okay?) so initially I found it interesting to be inside the mind of a fan at such a concert. Then I started thinking back on all the concerts I attended and wondered if I or my friends ever asked prophetic questions like the one in the book about whether Wynonna would go solo. Did any of my friends wonder if Sting would go solo? Did we wonder if Kim Deal might seek greener pastures? I don't remember, but I started thinking about the concert experience as I knew it my first decade or so of concerts (1972-1982) and the last decade when I was still attending at least 50 concerts a year (1998-2008). Then I annoyed my friends about their experiences. And just like this paragraph, I was off on a tangent for a few days.

So, anyway, I definitely recommend this to readers who like novels that take the long view and brings you along. I think you get to know the protagonist quite well and whether you "like" her or not she makes for a wonderful guide to how to live two lives at once.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers. show less

Dare I say that this was a charming read? It isn’t really, although I sped right through it. Miss Farwell is so deluded and truly, she should be hideously unpleasant to read about, but one can’t help but root for her to pull off her little Ponzi scheme. The contrast between her accountant by day/art dealer by night is so delicious to behold, as is her determination to move past the constraints of her birth (gender, socioeconomics). A man in her position, at that time, would have been celebrated as a genius. Alas, if we had beaches, this would make a fine read.

Greed and obsession are packaged in Becky Farwell, and even though you know she is greedy and out for her own interests, the reader will like her. Even at the end after she has been caught for embezzling city funds from the city for which she worked; you will like her. She may not have gone to college, but she’s got math smarts which keeps moving her up in the financial department of the small city outside of Chicago where she lives. Her problem is that she likes art. By this I mean EXPENSIVE art and as she figures out how to move the money to a city bank account that only she can access the funds her obsession grows and she finds herself moving among the big art aficionados not only of New York City but the world. Her double life show more works for an astonishing long time, and when it crashes, the FBI has become involved. I enjoyed the audio version of the book. Well read, with wonderful voices for different characters. I only have quibbles with a few minor details. The town of Pierson has a Petunia Festival and she helps plant petunia “bulbs”. Since when do petunias come from bulbs. As her double life becomes stressful, she begins having health problems. One of the issues is skin rashes. She reads an article about a woman who had a terrible rash on her head and during the night, she scratched it so much she ended up scratching brain matter. Where on the head does the skull not protect the brain? I can’t see how this is possible. Although the reader knows Becky is doomed if she doesn’t get her embezzlement under control, and the ending is probably known after the first two chapters, the road she takes in collecting art is interesting. show less