Portrait of an Unknown Lady

Starred review from November 1, 2021
Gainza (Optic Nerve) returns with a ruminative account of the pursuit of a master forger who has gone off the grid in a dreamy Buenos Aires. The unnamed narrator, a young woman, works for art authenticator Enriqueta Macedo, who for decades has been fraudulently authenticating paintings forged by a woman named Renée, who specialized in passing off works of Mariette Lydis, one of the country’s greatest portraitists (“They resemble women about to turn into animals, or animals not since long made human,” the narrator says of Lydis’s subjects). Gainza paints an impressionistic group portrait of artist, authenticator, and forger: Lydis’s flight from Nazi-occupied Vienna to Argentina, recounted through an auction catalog (“Painting is worth more if there’s a story behind it”); Enriqueta’s initiation as a young woman into a group called the Melancholical Forgers, Inc.; and Renée’s reign during the “golden age of art forgery.” The narrator, who after Enriqueta’s death becomes an art critic, is intrigued by Renée as a biographical subject, and embarks on a quest to track down the long-since-disappeared counterfeiter. Digressions, aphorisms, and dead ends pile up along the way in a hypnotic search defined by “Sehnsucht... the German term denoting a melancholic desire for some intangible thing.” The characters’ incertitude and the narrative’s lack of resolution only intensify the mysterious communion Gainza evokes between like-minded souls. This captivating work is one to savor.

September 1, 2022

The description of Gainza's second novel to be published in English (after Optic Nerve) might lead listeners to assume they are about to hear a gripping tale of detection, full of cleverness and subterfuge. Some of that is present, but overall the novel is a meandering, leisurely account of a corrupted art expert's journey into the world of art forgery and the obsession that keeps her from more honest work. This story, and its presentation, makes for an excellent audiobook. It is easy to fall into the conversational cadence of narrator Kyla Garcia's voice, which makes it seem as if she is speaking directly to the listener. The less straightforward flow of the narrative feels natural, mimicking the tangents and backtracking that the average speaker indulges in when they tell a story. It's easy to comfortably ride the narrative and reach what conclusions are available when they happen to arise. VERDICT One of those wonderful listens in which the audiobook edition may well be the best way to experience the story.--Matthew Galloway

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