Somerville Reads!

The Art Forger  by B. A. Shapiro  is our book for this year's Somerville Reads. Inspired by the 1990 Gardner Museum heist, the Art Forger is  the story of Claire Roth, a struggling young artist who makes a meager living painting reproductions. Her luck seemingly changes when an art dealer offers a very large fee and a one-woman show at a hip gallery in return for copying a painting that bears an unsettling resemblance to one of the missing Gardner works.  Is it authentic? And why is someone willing to offer Claire so much in return for a copy of one painting? Is she being asked to copy, or forge? Soon we're in the middle of an intriguing, twisting multilayered plot that takes us not only into the artistic underworld but also into the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner herself. This is a novel that grapples with unsolved mysteries and philosophical conundrums.  As Claire says, "People see what they want to see."  If a museum unknowingly buys a forged Degas, and all its visitors think they're looking at a Degas, for all practical purposes haven't they seen a Degas? The Art Forger is a compulsively readable mystery that grapples with the most profound of questions: what's real? We're planning many great events and discussions, including a visit by the author herself on Sept. 18. Stay tuned....