Audubon's Watch

"Audubon's Watch", by John Gregory Brown is the first book of his work that I have read, and I intend to read his previous two books very soon. While reading this tale I often thought of the work of Wilkie Collins, one of the great writers of the late 19th century, and the man widely credited with the creation of the modern mystery genre. The Audubon of this novel is the famous artist who documented the birds of America, and while knowing some of the man's history is helpful it is not necessary.A great mystery work maintains the suspense, the tension of the story to the very end. The tale itself sustains and lures the reader throughout the book without the need for blind alleys or misdirection. The facets that I mention can be great fun when used by many authors. Mr. Brown did not use them here, and I think the work is all that much better without the devices.A young woman dies and Audubon is asked to sit watch with the husband the first night following her death. There is a second watch that has three owners, a watch that works or doesn't, a watch that appears to have a mind of its own. A common ritual in this instance has immense importance, for the husband is considered a notorious anatomist/resurrectionist, and Mr. Audubon has knowledge that drives his guilt for 30 years, when on his deathbed he summons the man he sat with that evening. But what is he guilty of, why does Emile, the deceased's husband, make a month long trek dealing with his own failing health to hear what Audubon wishes to say? And what could possibly be haunting Emile for these now past 30 years? The answers are all in the book, and they are not what appear to be obvious or even high probability predictions. The author is brilliant at manipulating what he shares and how he shares it, so that what you may take as a conversation among characters is something very different.The author seems to play with the reader's need to know and the reader's willingness to make presumptions before the tale is complete. The effect he produces is really marvelous and entertaining. When he digresses from the specifics at hand to share the imagery of a roaring fire, a hurricane, and the flashing blades of the cutters of the cane as they work in his inferno is great reading.John Gregory Brown is another writer that seems to have yet to be discovered by large numbers of readers. His work will now be on my reading list going forward.

I loved Brown's first two novels, "Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery" and "The Wrecked Blessed Body of Shelton Lafleur", but I think this new one is his best. As with the others, this is a terribly sad and rather disturbing story but the writing is glorious and the observations about John James Audubon completely fascinating. Brown takes us into the minds of Audubon and the anatomist Emile Gautreaux not just as artist and scientist but as men. He examines them the way they examine their subjects. The novel's real subject seems to be grief and passion and the way both can take hold of us. I think John Gregory Brown's books deserve to get much more attention than they do.