Review: The Marriage Artist by Andrew Winer

“You live your life with the hope of becoming someone’s memory,” Herr Pick says with a snickering sullenness. “Then it turns out you will have to keep theirs.”
The Marriage Artist – Andrew Winer

The narrative of Andrew Winer’s The Marriage Artist is akin to two train tracks heading toward each other and meeting at a final destination. Imagine watching these trains from the sky, see them converge, but sit back and enjoy the view. Look at the landscape, watch the passing trees, and eavesdrop on fellow travelers’ conversations and stories which only make sense once both trains have pulled into the station.

Track one is the story of art critic Daniel Lichtmann, whose wife Aleksandra plunged to her death alongside Benjamin Wind, one of Daniel’s favorite artists. Whether his wife and the artist were lovers is unknown. What she was doing on the roof of his building, and whether the two jumped to their deaths by choice or force, also remains a mystery. Daniel searches for answers and receives unexpected information in the form of an elderly wheelchair-bound man who attends both funerals.

Track two starts in 1928 Vienna when young Josef Pick discovers his artistic talent and trains with his grandfather to paint Jewish marriage contracts called ketubah. This track follows young Josef through his teenage and early adult years, during the tumultuous start of World War II and the purging of Jewish citizens from Vienna, until it meets with Daniel Lichtmann’s story in the present day.

At times both sweeping and engaging, here is an author who knows his tools and how to use them. Winer’s prose ranges from lilting and poetic to stream-of-consciousness. Emotional and poignant, The Marriage Artist is a vast and tremendous dramatic novel of history and heartache. Of the bonds that bring people together and the devices that tear us apart.

Not knowing where the plot is taking us, the reader has no choice but to read onward, trusting in the author to reveal his secrets. And reveal he does. Winer selectively shares bits of historical ingredients to define the puzzle of present day, piecing each corner edge to its partner. Only when the whole puzzle is complete can we truly see and appreciate the splendor of the picture. Beautifully wrought and imagined, The Marriage Artist is remarkably unlike anything I’ve read in quite some time.

5 stars

(I received an advance copy from the publisher)