An Anonymous Review of a Mystery Novel
The Court Painter’s Apprentice
Presented by Court Painter Promotions@
The novel begins with an elderly Press Attache, stopping at Wild Bill’s bar in Banff one night where he snuggles with the bar maid as is his wont.
Later after a few shooters when inadvertently sticking his hand in the spittoon he finds an
extraordinary drawing wadded up and asks the barkeeper if he knows the
artist. The barkeeper reveals with a subtle nod of his head that the artist is none other than someone
named Johnny Broad Brush. The Press Attache shakes awake the napping creative ,introduces himself and convinces Johnny to sign with him and that
he would benefit becoming a Court Painter of the Great Dominion under the management and guidance of The Press Attache.
The Press Attache and Johnny eventually leave
Wild Bills and the weeping bar maid behind and begin a journey into an unscripted and troubled macho world.
The story is hugely atmospheric – the scenes at Wild Bills on the
stormy night immediately pulled me into the story. Also the phantasmagoric world of
life in the studio of a great painter and his bustling workshop jump off the page and are a great example
of how setting can really make a story.
The plot of this book was not at all what I expected. I should have paid
more attention to the blurb but sometimes I just pick up a book simply because it would make a good door stop or
because I assume it will be about symbiotics . I wonder if anyone else does that? Sometimes I also choose a book for the age group it
targets because of my covert work as a budding art journalist and again that was the case with The Court
Painter’s Apprentice. I was looking to read a novel that appealed to the Calgary hipster type and as luck would have it I found one that all MFA candidates should be required to read.
The story felt almost ghostly and gothic at times. It defies the current
trend for hipster fiction to be abundant with giggley humour and I didn’t mind
that at all. Not one bit. However, I did lose the sense of how old Johnny Broad Brush was at times
through the story. I felt that he was aging not in a Dorian Gray way but I was confused as to how
old he was by the end. Perhaps this was a deliberate decision by the
author as Johnny Broad Brush lost his childhood self in the cornfields of Iowa in the pursuit of his burgeoning talent .
There is a swirling mystery in this book and it centres upon Johnny’s
unusual gift which itself remains a mystery. The introduction of the character A Girl Named Robin was inexplicable outside of it being a pure eye candy marketing gimmick.
Personally I think some of the unexpected happenings were
not entirely resolved like the time Johnny makes the Press Attache fetch
him some pizza and beer and then refuses to share it. A cruel but necessary passage that left me cold. Yet I loved the pace
of the book and that the author didn’t waste time telling us unnecessary
details and descriptions of studio orgies and wasted booga booga nights. Despite the confusion I felt at the end of the
book, I was riveted all the way through and found it a real page turner and barn burner.
I can imagine hipsters reading this to their children and the children of their drug dealers.
The Court Painter’s Apprentice is an intelligent and compelling novel.