SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE E5
Book World
BY CORY OLDWEILERI
t sure feels as if authenticity
is of paramount importance
lately when it comes to mo-
mentous news, such as up-
dates on the war in Ukraine, or
trivial concerns, such as the take-
over of the Wordle game by the
New York Times. People demand
proof, and they hesitate to give
the benefit of the doubt. The
distrust is understandable. Mis-
information has never been easi-
er to produce or to disseminate.
And it’s easier to live in the bubble
that bolsters what we already
believe
Such concerns have long been
fodder for fiction, but three new
literary thrillers explore authen-
ticity through the lens of the art
world, looking at what consti-
tutes an artist, what determines
the value of art, who controls our
access to it and, most important-
ly, perhaps, who should be mak-
ing those decisions.
Joe Mungo Reed’s “Hammer”
has a lot to say about the role that
art plays in the world at large. The
auction house where Martin
works is at the center of London’s
opulent and ruthless high-end
scene, a stark contrast to the
hippie compound where he grew
up. At an event, he bumps into
Marina, a wealthy Russian beauty
whom he hasn’t seen s ince their
university days nine years earlier.
Back then, she was dating Mar-
tin’s roommate; now she’s mar-
ried to Oleg Gorelov, an ostenta-
tious emigre oligarch and art
collector.
M artin uses his past with Mari-
na to insinuate himself into
Oleg’s orbit, gaining his confi-
dence and a trip to the Geneva
Freeport — a t rade zone with tax
benefits — w here Oleg keeps his
most valuable pieces, including a
painting by the real-life Ukraini-an avant-garde artist Kazimir
Malevich that was thought to be
lost.
Appearances are critical in this
world, but they are not something
that wealth can necessarily con-
trol. Oleg worries about how he
acquired his fortune and what
kind of legacy he will leave in
Russia. Marina was disgusted by
her parents’ wealth growing up,
and she has an affair that repre-
sents a way to reclaim some of
those earlier feelings about
riches. And Martin revels in the
finer things his career has
brought him but starts to wonder
about the cost to the values he
grew up believing in.
A late plot twist involving
Ukrainian independence and
Russian President Vladimir Pu-tin’s 2014 invasion of Crimea
gains lamentable timeliness from
current events, and Reed steadily
weaves his characters’ increas-
ingly disparate lives into an intri-
cate look at politics, morality and
ways of coming to terms with
one’s past.
Erica Katz’s “Fake” is n ot
steeped in geopolitics, but the
stakes are just as high for 20-
something New Yorker Emma
Caan, who is trying to jump-start
her life, professionally and social-
ly. When she was an art major at
Yale, Emma’s paintings were la-
beled “Technically superior. Emo-
tionally detached.” So instead of
becoming a famous artist, she
lives paycheck to paycheck copy-
ing priceless works of art for a
company retained by collectorsand museums that need to dis-
play fakes for generally legitimate
reasons.
Longtime client and Russian
billionaire Leonard Sobetsky
hires Emma to copy paintings for
him privately — at $10,000 a pop
— and gets her a job at a trendset-
ting gallery. He even sets her up in
a SoHo loft 10 times as big as her
Washington Heights studio. Next
thing she knows, Emma’s solo
nights of scrolling Instagram
while eating instant ramen are a
thing of the past. S he’s jetting to
Hong Kong on Lenny’s private
plane and partying with influenc-
er @JustJules.
Readers already know where
this is headed; each chapter
opens with FBI agents question-
ing Emma about Lenny. Thewarning signs are there for her,
too, but she is too used to having
it all to give it up. And she has
another major problem. She suf-
fers from debilitating pyropho-
bia, irrational fear of fire, which
causes panic-induced b lackouts
and night terrors. The source of
the trauma becomes evident early
on, but Emma grapples with it as
if it were the Enigma code.
D espite some melodramatics,
“Fake” is great fun, offering a peek
into a world of glitz that most of
us will never glimpse firsthand.
María Gainza’s “Portrait of an
Unknown Lady,” translated from
Spanish by Thomas Bunstead,
takes a more philosophical look
at the art world, one that asks
what makes a person an artist.
Our narrator is a disillusioned artcritic in Buenos Aires who uses
the nom de plume María Lydis.
She is investigating a mysterious
forger, and she warns the reader
to consider the tale she is telling,
and the portrait it is creating,
warily — not because she is dis-
honest but because memory and
art are subjective and imperfect.
“We do not recover the past, we
re-create it.”
The past that María is trying to
re-create concerns Argentina’s
most notorious forger, the “beau-
tiful, enigmatic” Renée. In the
1960 s, Renée was part of a boho
crime ring that was based at a
hotel in the north of the city and
that made a living by “cheating
the rich.” By the 1990s, she was
growing cactuses and producing
only original art, but she was
living alone in squalor. Then she
disappeared.
María first learns of Renée’s
exploits from her boss, Enriqueta
Macedo, a venerated art authenti-
cator who for decades has been
validating fakes, including those
painted by Renée years ago. Now
in her 70s, Enriqueta taps María
to be her successor, and the
younger woman embraces a life
of crime, finding both adventure
and security.
Enriqueta’s death makes María
reconsider, and she begins a ca-
reer as a critic. But then she is
pulled back into her disreputable
past by the appearance of a collec-
tion of works by a painter closely
tied to Renée. Bunstead’s colorful
translation reads at times as an
adventure serial, at times as hard-
boiled noir, and through it all,
María uses her wit, erudition and
sass to suss out the meaning of
art.Cory Oldweiler’s writing has
appeared in the Star Tribune, the Los
Angeles Review of Books and the
Boston Globe.Novels set in a rt world highlight angst over authenticity
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