The Swan Thieves

By Elizabeth Kostova
(Little, Brown and Company, Hardcover, 9780316065788, 576pp.)

Publication Date: January 12, 2010

Other Editions of This Title: Hardcover, Paperback, Compact Disc, Hardcover, Paperback

Categories: General

Selected by Indie Booksellers for the January 2010 Indie Next List

“The Swan Thieves skillfully blends the worlds of art, psychology, history, and mythology with myriad voices to create a compelling tale of love, obsession, and human nature. Add a dash of mystery, and you have a thoroughly satisfying read.”

-- Sue Beale, Nicola's Books, Ann Arbor, MI

Description

Psychiatrist Andrew Marlow, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret that torments the genius, he embarks on a journey that leads him into the lives of the women closest to Oliver and a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism.

Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love. THE SWAN THIEVES is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.

About the Author

Elizabeth Kostova is the author of the international bestseller The Historian. She graduated from Yale and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award for the Novel-in-Progress.

Kostova's 'Swan Thieves': Art, Love and Crime

Saturday, Jan 9, 2010

The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova's follow-up to her 2005 novel The Historian, revolves around twin stories: a 19th century love affair between two artists, and a modern-day psychiatrist treating an artist arrested for stabbing a painting at Washington, D.C.'s National Gallery of Art. More at NPR.org

NPR Audio Player Requires Flash Upgrade: Please upgrade your plug-in to view this content.

	Flight Behavior Barbara Kingsolver Harper
	The Art Forger Barbara Shapiro Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
	Sweeth Tooth Ian McEwan Nan A. Talese
	The Light Between Oceans ML Steadman Scribner