Venus, Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell

“Gripping, gorgeously written.” —Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre
“Extraordinary.” —Elizabeth O'Connor, author of Whale Fall
“Vivid...Asking what it means to make art in an emergency.” —Eleanor Catton, author of Birnam Wood and The Luminaries

Portrait of a Lady on Fire meets The Safekeep in this gripping debut that reckons with art forgery, desire, suspicion, and resistance

 

In raucous 1928 Berlin, Hannah Sherman has deviated from the traditional arc of a woman’s life. An artist and a runaway, she revels in the city’s underground art scene and her newfound freedom. Working as a tailor while studying art in every spare moment, Hannah comes to know women and their bodies, first with measuring tape and silk, and later through sensuous layers of paint.

Hannah feels like she can finally call herself an artist when an intoxicating, wealthy female collector commissions an elaborate series of nude portraits. But after Hannah finishes the acclaimed Venus paintings, she discovers that her work has been tampered with and exhibited under a man’s name. When lines between artist and muse are crossed in a heady but perilous affair, Hannah transforms her work into an act of revenge, finding herself caught up in a devastating game of betrayal.

Laced with queer desire and life-threatening secrets, Venus, Vanishing pulses with the hedonism and danger of 1930s Berlin as history comes to Hannah’s door, offering a heart-pounding story of Jewish survival, creativity, and resistance.