Costco Connection - June 2013

book pıck
The real deal
Author finds true success
with novel about forged art

By Hope Katz Gibbs

“I’M A COWARDLY writer,” admits Barbara “B. A.” Shapiro, author of the critically acclaimed best-seller The Art Forger. It’s a twisty tale about the largest unsolved art theft in history: more than a dozen paintings that were stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990.

“Some writers sit down and begin
a novel without knowing where it will
end, trusting the process to bring their
story to a satisfying conclusion,”
explains the author of six novels and
one nonfiction title. “But not me. I
need an outline that allows me to
believe my idea might be transformed
into a successful novel. I need a work-
ing plot. Which is why it takes me so
long to get from the first glimmer of
an idea to a complete manuscript.”
The good news for readers is that
Shapiro fell in love with Isabella
Stewart Gardner back in 1983. True, the heiress
died in 1924, but when two men dressed as police
officers broke into her museum and stole 13 pieces
of art that today are worth more than $500 million,
Shapiro knew she had plenty of juicy details to
work with.

But wasn’t the topic too vast and complicated? Wouldn’t someone else beat her to the publishing punch? Or, perhaps, the mystery would be solved before she could finish writing a book about the heist.

B. A. Shapiro

Shapiro’s doubts kept the idea for her literary thriller tucked in her imagination as she wrote other books, raised two kids and got a Ph.D. in sociology. She also spent years teaching creative writing at Northeastern University.

Then one day, 19 years after Rembrandt van Rijn’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Vermeer’s The Concert and the other artworks had been taken and remained in hiding, Shapiro had a breakthrough.

“I was ruminating on how difficult life was for anyone in the arts, and feeling more than a bit sorry for myself, [and] my missing link appeared in the form of a question: What would any of us be willing to do to secure our ambitions? Unknown artists, famous artists, collectors, brokers and gallery owners? Me? Isabella Stewart Gardner herself?”

Shapiro expanded her cast of characters and gave each one a temptation their egos couldn’t resist.

LYNN WAYNE

The result is a 355-page read that includes a Faustian bargain for Claire Roth, a talented young Boston artist who agrees to forge a Degas painting in exchange for a gallery show. When she begins to suspect that the Degas in her studio may be the original stolen during the 1990 robbery, she begins an investigation that uncovers secrets about the relationship between Degas and Isabella Gardner. Thievery, romance, danger and intrigue ensue. Honestly, this book is impossible to put down.

Who could ask for more?

Shapiro, perhaps, who at 61 struggles with the mystery of why some authors hit the big time, while others take decades, if ever, to realize their dreams of writing a best-seller.

w ei i heir first books. halso also know

“It is bizarre, after all of these years, to have it happen now—and it is just blowing me away,” Shapiro tells The Connection from her home office in Boston. “I have some friends who made it really early in their careers and then they spend the rest of the time trying to keep up with their first books.

“Yes, I feel like I ‘deserve’ this success in the sense that I’ve worked really hard and I think I

wrote a pretty good book. But I also know many people who have worked just as hard and have written good—if not better—books, and they aren’t getting this gift. I chalk it up to the whims of fate, and a big chunk of luck.”

C

FRANCE FREEMAN

Tablet or smartphone? Scan or click the book’s cover to watch a video about the book. Scan or click here to enter the giveaway in our digital newsstand and online editions. (See page 5.)

IN MARCH OF this year I heard a story on NPR about how FBI agents think they know who’s behind the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist in 1990— although at press time they still haven’t divulged any names. While the theft is fascinating on its own, I love that B. A. Shapiro used that mystery as a springboard for the captivating story she tells in this month’s Book Buyer’s Pick, The Art Forger.

Claire Roth, a young artist, makes a deal to copy a famous work of art—one stolen from the Gardner’s collection—in exchange for a one-woman show at a prestigious art gallery. Shapiro’s examination of blind ambition is a fresh look at what any of us would do to get what we most want out of life.

(Available now, Item 769571.)

For more book picks, see page 75.

Signed book giveaway

COSTCO HAS 50 SIGNED COPIES of B. A. Shapiro’s The Art Forger to give away. To enter, go to Costco.com, search for “JunBookPick” and follow the instructions. Or print your name, address and daytime phone number on a postcard or letter and send it to: B. A. Shapiro, The Costco Connection, P.O. Box 34088, Seattle, WA 98124-1088. NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT OR OPT-IN OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.

Purchase will not improve odds of winning. S weepstakes is sponsored by Algonquin Books, P. O. Box 2225, Chapel Hill, NC 27515. Open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are age 18 or older at the time of entry. One entry per household. Entries must be received by July 1, 2013. Winners will be randomly selected and noti;ed by mail on or before August 1, 2013. The value of the prize is $14.95. Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible for all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. Employees of Costco or Algonquin and their families are not eligible.