A cottage in the Cotswolds seems like the perfect place for Anna to recuperate from a serious psychological trauma, with her partner, Emily. But then, near the beginning of Sarah K. Marr’s All the Perverse Angels, Anna finds a Pre-Raphaelite painting from the late Victorian era and her obsessive art conservator’s brain kicks into high gear. Instead of resting and taking her pills like a good girl, Anna dives into a quest to find out everything about the painting and the models who sat for it—anything to keep herself from thinking about what sent her to the Cotsworlds in the first place.
Anna has a strange brain, but one I can kind of understand. Like Anna, my brain also likes to connect seemingly random facts. Anna likes to imagine herself into paintings (which I don’t do). She’ll imagine herself as a figure in an Edward Hopper painting, which will make her think of the model and the model’s relationship to the painter, which will remind her of the painter’s influences and connections. Then she’ll think about the historical context or links to literature. Everything connects in Anna’s brain. She thinks like a fully cross-referenced database with the ability to get lost in art. It’s not surprising, then, that she wants to who sat for the painting in the cottage’s attic, what the subject is, why the artist stuck with the Pre-Raphaelite style after it went out of fashion. She just has to know, no matter how much it annoys Emily or how much it derails her recovery.
All the Perverse Angels moves back and forth between Anna’s present and diary entries from one of the women who sat for the painting. Penelope Swift was one of the first women at Oxford University who gets tangled up in her attractions to two people she can’t have. One is a married man. The other is a titled lady. In 1887, neither is a possibility, but that doesn’t stop Penelope from trying anyway and posing for the married man.
There is plenty of art and history in this novel. There just wasn’t quiet enough psychology for me. I would have loved to have known more about what set Anna to the Cotswolds and what drives her obsession with art. There are parts where I got so lost in Anna’s thoughts that I wasn’t sure what was memory or imagination, which made it hard to tell what was a clue and what wasn’t. Maybe that’s the point. (Or maybe this book needed a bit more editing.) In spite of this, I found All the Perverse Angels to be an intriguing story with an original take on the story of a mysterious painting found in an attic.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
Oh, I loved this—glad others are reading. I think the bits that make it unclear whether we’re in Anna’s memory or imagination actually help to establish how mentally unwell she is; they’re disorienting, but they felt purposeful. And the art stuff is great; you’re right about how Anna thinks like a database, which I enjoyed very much.
I understand that. I might have found them especially confusing because the ARC I had didn’t have section breaks or anything to help me navigate.
That drives me absolutely mad; was it an e-galley? The formatting in those can be especially egregious.
It was an e-galley. Not the worst I’ve seen. I’ve had to return books in the past because, weirdly, all of the fl, fi, and ff combinations were missing.
Oh dear, OCR scanners…
I loved this book. From the start, I became completely invested. Marr writes of her characters with such sensitivity. They are vulnerable and compelling, and each one, satisfyingly unique. These two different stories, from different times, are expertly woven together in this sophisticated – yet utterly accessible – work; lovers of language and art will relish it. Anna, the narrating character, is an art curator whose knowledge and insight into classic works – and their artists – help her make try to make sense of her challenging past. I learned so much about many paintings both familiar and new-to-me, seeing them with new eyes and meaning. This is so much more than a story – it’s a remarkable, original work that’s immensely satisfying. An amazing first novel – I will certainly read anything else she writes.