The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque
William Morrow, June, 2002.
Hardcover, 310 pages.
ISBN: 0066211263
Jeffrey Ford burst on the literary scene with his
fantastic novels, The Physiognomy and Memoranda.
Now, Ford takes readers back to
1893 New York. Piero Piambo is society's favorite portrait artist.
Adored by the noveau riche, Piambo despises himself
for selling out to the highest bidder. Still, he is
doing quite well, financially. One day, a blind man
approaches him and offers him an exceptional job
which will not only pay an extraordinary fee, but will
pose a great challenge to Piambo's artistry.
Piambo must paint an exact likeness of the
mysterious Mrs. Charbuque. The catch: she will
remain seated behind a screen, and Piambo must
figure out what she looks like from the stories she
tells him. As Mrs. Charbuque tells Piambo the
bizarre story of her life, Piambo becomes
obsessed with finding out what his subject looks like.
Meanwhile, the city is in the grip of a grisly
serial killer who leaves his victims weeping
from the eyes. Could Mrs. Charbuque be connected
in some way to the deaths?
No one tells a story or creates a landscape quite like Jeffrey Ford. As Mrs. Charbuque spins her spider web of stories, the reader finds himself fantasizing about the appearance of the lady. Is she beautiful? Horribly ugly? Perhaps deformed in some way? And poor Piambo -- he is nearly being driven mad by the wondering. At turns, captivating, macabre and ghoulishly funny, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque is classic Jeffrey Ford: it is simply riveting.
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This review was published in the July-August, 2002 of The Internet Writing Journal.
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