The Black Painting

by Neil Olson

An old-money East Coast family faces the suspicious death of its patriarch and the unsolved theft of a Goya painting rumored to be cursed. There are four cousins in the Morse family: perfect Kenny, the preppy West Coast lawyer; James, the shy but brilliant medical student; his seductive, hard-drinking sister Audrey; and Teresa, youngest and most fragile, haunted by the fear that she has inherited the madness that possessed her father. Their grandfather summons them to his mansion at Owl's Point. None of them have visited the family estate since they were children, when a prized painting disappeared: a self-portrait by Goya, rumored to cause madness or death upon viewing. Afterward, the family split apart amid the accusations and suspicions that followed its theft.

• ISBN10: 1335953817
• ISBN13: 9781335953810
• Publish Date: 9 January 2018 (first published 1 January 2018)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Imprint: Hanover Square Press
• Edition: Original ed.
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[pamela]

I noped my way out of The Black Painting at 50%. I think I would have enjoyed it more had I read it, but the Audio Book was a hard no for me. The narrator didn't spark my interest, and the story meandered too much to really benefit from the format.

The premise of The Black Painting sounded promising. I do love Goya's work, and the idea of a cursed painting tickled me. But 50% of the way through there was minimal discussion about the art, and way too much time spent with one-dimensional characters. And don't even get me started on the way the women are written. There are no strong female characters, and I was constantly distracted by the fact that the female characters were objectified, and far too often described in terms of their breasts.

Add to that a stream of rhetorical questions from the protagonist, Teresa, and repetitive settings and characterisation, and there was just no way I could bring myself to finish it. Definitely interested to know if the physical reading experience is any different, but the Audio Book is undoubtedly not a recommendation from me.