I love epistolary novels. Something about the format—though I am sure it’s incredibly challenging for authors—gives me a sense of reality that straight exposition rarely does. Epistolary novels drop readers right into the story, leaving them to figure out what’s going on from context clues, and the plots race from letter to letter. I’m glad some contemporary authors are using emails, texts, and other digital ephemera to bring the genre back to life. Laurent Binet’s Perspective(s) is an epistolary novel in the old style, complete with an introduction in which B. finds and purchases a packet of letters and translates them for a contemporary audience.
B. offers only their brief introduction and a dramatis personae before leaving the letters to tell a strange story about a murdered artist, his scandalous frescoes, an even more scandalous painting, politics, intrigue, love, and loathing. (It’s truly astonishing how Binet develops so many subplots using only letters.) The letters begin in January 1557, when the body of Jacopo Pontormo is found in San Lorenzo, where he had been working on a series of frescoes that are rumored to rival what Michelangelo created in the Sistine Chapel. There are also rumors that the frescoes are full of nude figures, much to the displeasure of the Duchess of Florence, Eleanor of Toledo. When Pontormo’s lodgings are searched for clues, a painting of Venus and Cupid sparks an even bigger controversy because the face of Venus looks an awful lot like Eleanor’s daughter, Maria.
Eleanor, however, is never considered the murderer. Instead, suspicion falls on Pontormo’s assistants or perhaps a rogue artist. Florence in the 1550s is full of artists at loose ends, all clamoring for commissions and fame. Duke Cosimo de’ Medici commissions Giorgio Vasari to find out what happened to Pontormo. Vasari’s letters to and from Michelangelo, Agnolo Bronzino, and Benvenuto Cellini, among others provide further clues about what happened that night in San Lorenzo. Meanwhile, we also get letters to and from Maria de’ Medici to her relative, Catherine de’ Medici, and between Catherine and Pierro Strozzi, add a highly entertaining scheme involving the Venus and Cupid to discredit Cosimo. Further letters from Pontormo’s pigment grinder introduce a scheme to launch a proletarian rebellion in Florence. There’s a lot going on and, yet, I had no trouble keeping track of all of this—even when I hopped online to try and figure out how much was actual history and how much was Binet coloring outside of the lines.
As much as I enjoyed Perspective(s), I have major issues with the conclusion. I’m not going to spoil the mystery for readers who are intrigued by the premise and the cast of characters. There really is a lot to admire in this novel, so I’ll only say that I found the revelation of the murderer and their motive too implausible to make sense. I recommend reading this book for the history and the art, rather than the mystery itself.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
