BIO: Larry Witham is an author, editor, journalist, and artist. He has written fifteen books, and was a finalist in the 2015 Pen Literary Awards for biography. Witham lives with his wife in the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C. This is his third novel.
BooksAndAuthor.com: Why do you write? Who are your literary influences?
Larry Witham: My writing career began around 1981, when, at age 29, I landed a newspaper job. From that point forward, I developed a rhythm in my life for writing, first on daily news deadlines, and later on larger projects such as nonfiction books and novels (sixteen books by now, and two old manuscripts in the drawer). I’ve always been fascinated by ideas, and writing is one way to thrash those over and express my own perspectives. After a while—about 34 years—it’s very hard not to be thinking about the next writing project. I was first influenced by a cadre of nonfiction writers, with John McPhee as a kind of exemplar. When I began seriously reading fiction, I leaned toward Cold War and spy novels—or novels “torn from the headlines.” While I read all kinds now, I suppose those early genres still represent my core tastes.
BooksAndAuthor.com: Tell us about your new book Gallery Pieces: An Art Mystery and why you wrote this novel?
Larry Witham: I wrote this novel because, after producing several heavily-researched nonfiction books, I wanted to do something “easy” and imaginative. (I’d written novels in 1994 and 1997 for the same reason). Well, fiction is hard in its own way, of course. Since 2010, I’ve specialized in writing about art and art history. So the knowledge I needed to write an “art mystery” was already in my head. Gallery Pieces is the story of a former Navy intelligence civilian, Julian Peale, who goes to work in the New York art world. In the plot, he becomes a kind of art sleuth, pursuing two crime mysteries. One is related to Russians who smuggle art. The other regards his grandfather’s sullied reputation as a “monuments man”—a soldier who recovered looted Nazi art—during WWII.
BooksAndAuthor.com: Who is Julian Peale?
Larry Witham: Hopefully he’s the next Robert Langdon, you know, the Harvard professor who solves all the art historical riddles in The Da Vinci Code. But seriously, Julian Peale is the kind of middle-aged American good guy with foibles that I feel I can write about. He was brought up around Annapolis, Maryland, and Washington D.C.—turf I know very well—and has Navy in his family. He’s left behind a tough career that’s equipped him with a number of intellectual and action skills. As we meet him, he is free to pursue a vocation he’s always been fascinated by, that is, painting (which was my own training in college). He works out of Medici Studios in Manhattan, giving him contacts with the NYPD and FBI, and a springboard into the wider art world. Peale’s ancestor is Charles Willson Peale, the great colonial painter, giving our modern-day Peale some “art in his genes,” and some future possibilities with plots.
BooksAndAuthor.com: Are you personally an art collector? Where did your art knowledge come from for Gallery Pieces: An Art Mystery?
Larry Witham: No, I’m not a collector, only an appreciator. I’m from the San Francisco Bay Area. In college there, class of ’74, I earned a bachelor’s degree in painting. I was attracted to realism (and surrealism) as compared to abstraction. My career path diverted me from art practice, however. A few years after I left the newspaper industry in 2003, I decided to do some serious writing on the art topic, and perhaps retrain myself as a painter (a nice avocation for old age!) For one of my nonfiction books (Artschooled), I spent a schoolyear as a fly-on-the-wall journalist at a nationally-known art college in Baltimore. I’ve watched the art market in action, but mostly know of it from reading books on the topic. As to crime and politics, which play a role in Gallery Pieces, I learned it all during twenty-one years as a newspaper reporter. I’ve lived in England and Manhattan and written a book about Russia, so characters with those backgrounds in Gallery Pieces came naturally enough.
BooksAndAuthor.com: If Hollywood called and asked you to cast Gallery Pieces: An Art Mystery, who do you cast and why?
Larry Witham: I suspect a screen writer would have to simplify the plot to decrease the number of characters in Gallery Pieces. Even then, what remains would be a large cast, and matching ages would be challenging: Our hero, Julian Peale, his elderly boss, Leo Medici, the two copers (one NYPD and the other FBI), the two young anarchist artists, the British avant-garde couple, and finally two Russians, the oligarch bad guy, and the ambiguous Russian art dealer. There are also two women who are fond of Peale, though they are not pivotal to the crime plot. Okay, let’s reach impossibly high. Ryan Gosling as Julian, Robert De Niro as Medici, Mark Ruffalo and Philip Baker Hall as the copers, James McAvoy and Honeysuckle Weeks as the Brits, Ralph Fiennes and Viggo Mortensen as the Russians, and the shaggy Jamie Bell and Jim Sturgess as the young anarchists. Peale’s potential love interests are about his age, early forties, one Italian-American, the other a fair-haired WASP. Why not raven-haired Camilla Belle and tough-and-pretty Maria Bello.
BooksAndAuthor.com: Explain each book title; "Gallery Pieces", as it relates to that book.
Larry Witham: A great title is hard to find. It is best, they say, to have just one or two words that will play metaphorically on all kinds of meanings (or at least a double entendre). “Gallery” evokes the art world, and “pieces” lends to the idea of a puzzle, or something fractured. If the novel had focused on one famous painting—as many novels about the art world do—I would have had a readymade title: the name of that painting. Think of The Goldfinch, The Rembrandt Affair, The Modigliani Scandal, the Da Vinci Code, Giotto’s Hand, The Music Lesson, or many such novel titles. Not possible with Gallery Pieces.
BooksAndAuthor.com: What did you learn from writing Gallery Pieces: An Art Mystery?
Larry Witham: I learned three things. First was a different approach to writing a novel. In my previous two novels, I wrote outlines and tried to make sure each step in the plot had a logical transition to the next one. In Gallery Pieces, I still had an outline (with an ending in mind), but used a different emphasis: I focused on writing compelling scenes. Each scene, for the most part, is a short chapter. After that, I worked on connecting the scenes. Some I cut out, others I merged, and I often stumbled upon new plot twists and solutions. I found this a more vivid way to write a novel than to simply plod from front to back. Second, as an informational matter, I learned a lot more about the world of hacking. It’s not only a technological wave, but a generational one. Gallery Pieces delves into the world of young anarchists who are hackers and “artists.” Third, this project increased my knowledge of the Nazi looting of art during World War II. There are a handful of excellent books on the topic, and reading them was a revelation. Actually, I learned a forth. As a result of marketing research for Gallery Pieces, I explored novels on art topics going back in history. I’ve found about 150 such novels, and am now writing a blog about their many and varied themes: “Novelists on Artists” http://novelistsonartists.blogspot.com
BooksAndAuthor.com: What do you hope to achieve with Gallery Pieces: An Art Mystery ?
Larry Witham: I admire fiction writing that is elegant, intelligent, witty—and as concise as possible. They say a novel must reach the emotions of the reader, but I’m not sure that’s my forte—or what I look for in a novel. I’m not sure what it means to “really care about” a fictitious character (since he or she really doesn’t exist!), though I do know what it means to tell a good story and to avoid annoying, implausible, and boring characters. I’m pretty much a, “Wow, this is interesting, well-written, and enjoyable, so what happens next?” type of novel reader. That’s the kind of entertainment I hope to offer in Gallery Pieces. I don’t foresee any weeping readers (a la Bridges of Madison County!), or people staying up all night because “they can’t put it down,” which is mostly an untrue cliché anyway. I hope to entertain and deliver some insights into the art world, the love of painting, the hacking culture, the generational divide, and art crime. And, yes, Julian Peale does change amid challenge in the story, as Aristotle requires. But he won’t ever be studied in lit classes like a Madame Bovary.
BooksAndAuthor.com: What's Next ?
Larry Witham: I have a second Julian Peale novel on the drawing board. However, its future will depend on how Gallery Pieces is received. As we all know, publishers watch an author’s sales record more than anything else. If no sales, there’s no next book contract (or little motivation to self-publish again). For all his allure, Julian Peale may go out in a one-off burst of glory. Or, maybe not.
BooksAndAuthor.com: Why do you write? Who are your literary influences?
Larry Witham: My writing career began around 1981, when, at age 29, I landed a newspaper job. From that point forward, I developed a rhythm in my life for writing, first on daily news deadlines, and later on larger projects such as nonfiction books and novels (sixteen books by now, and two old manuscripts in the drawer). I’ve always been fascinated by ideas, and writing is one way to thrash those over and express my own perspectives. After a while—about 34 years—it’s very hard not to be thinking about the next writing project. I was first influenced by a cadre of nonfiction writers, with John McPhee as a kind of exemplar. When I began seriously reading fiction, I leaned toward Cold War and spy novels—or novels “torn from the headlines.” While I read all kinds now, I suppose those early genres still represent my core tastes.
BooksAndAuthor.com: Tell us about your new book Gallery Pieces: An Art Mystery and why you wrote this novel?
Larry Witham: I wrote this novel because, after producing several heavily-researched nonfiction books, I wanted to do something “easy” and imaginative. (I’d written novels in 1994 and 1997 for the same reason). Well, fiction is hard in its own way, of course. Since 2010, I’ve specialized in writing about art and art history. So the knowledge I needed to write an “art mystery” was already in my head. Gallery Pieces is the story of a former Navy intelligence civilian, Julian Peale, who goes to work in the New York art world. In the plot, he becomes a kind of art sleuth, pursuing two crime mysteries. One is related to Russians who smuggle art. The other regards his grandfather’s sullied reputation as a “monuments man”—a soldier who recovered looted Nazi art—during WWII.
BooksAndAuthor.com: Who is Julian Peale?
Larry Witham: Hopefully he’s the next Robert Langdon, you know, the Harvard professor who solves all the art historical riddles in The Da Vinci Code. But seriously, Julian Peale is the kind of middle-aged American good guy with foibles that I feel I can write about. He was brought up around Annapolis, Maryland, and Washington D.C.—turf I know very well—and has Navy in his family. He’s left behind a tough career that’s equipped him with a number of intellectual and action skills. As we meet him, he is free to pursue a vocation he’s always been fascinated by, that is, painting (which was my own training in college). He works out of Medici Studios in Manhattan, giving him contacts with the NYPD and FBI, and a springboard into the wider art world. Peale’s ancestor is Charles Willson Peale, the great colonial painter, giving our modern-day Peale some “art in his genes,” and some future possibilities with plots.
BooksAndAuthor.com: Are you personally an art collector? Where did your art knowledge come from for Gallery Pieces: An Art Mystery?
Larry Witham: No, I’m not a collector, only an appreciator. I’m from the San Francisco Bay Area. In college there, class of ’74, I earned a bachelor’s degree in painting. I was attracted to realism (and surrealism) as compared to abstraction. My career path diverted me from art practice, however. A few years after I left the newspaper industry in 2003, I decided to do some serious writing on the art topic, and perhaps retrain myself as a painter (a nice avocation for old age!) For one of my nonfiction books (Artschooled), I spent a schoolyear as a fly-on-the-wall journalist at a nationally-known art college in Baltimore. I’ve watched the art market in action, but mostly know of it from reading books on the topic. As to crime and politics, which play a role in Gallery Pieces, I learned it all during twenty-one years as a newspaper reporter. I’ve lived in England and Manhattan and written a book about Russia, so characters with those backgrounds in Gallery Pieces came naturally enough.
BooksAndAuthor.com: If Hollywood called and asked you to cast Gallery Pieces: An Art Mystery, who do you cast and why?
Larry Witham: I suspect a screen writer would have to simplify the plot to decrease the number of characters in Gallery Pieces. Even then, what remains would be a large cast, and matching ages would be challenging: Our hero, Julian Peale, his elderly boss, Leo Medici, the two copers (one NYPD and the other FBI), the two young anarchist artists, the British avant-garde couple, and finally two Russians, the oligarch bad guy, and the ambiguous Russian art dealer. There are also two women who are fond of Peale, though they are not pivotal to the crime plot. Okay, let’s reach impossibly high. Ryan Gosling as Julian, Robert De Niro as Medici, Mark Ruffalo and Philip Baker Hall as the copers, James McAvoy and Honeysuckle Weeks as the Brits, Ralph Fiennes and Viggo Mortensen as the Russians, and the shaggy Jamie Bell and Jim Sturgess as the young anarchists. Peale’s potential love interests are about his age, early forties, one Italian-American, the other a fair-haired WASP. Why not raven-haired Camilla Belle and tough-and-pretty Maria Bello.
BooksAndAuthor.com: Explain each book title; "Gallery Pieces", as it relates to that book.
Larry Witham: A great title is hard to find. It is best, they say, to have just one or two words that will play metaphorically on all kinds of meanings (or at least a double entendre). “Gallery” evokes the art world, and “pieces” lends to the idea of a puzzle, or something fractured. If the novel had focused on one famous painting—as many novels about the art world do—I would have had a readymade title: the name of that painting. Think of The Goldfinch, The Rembrandt Affair, The Modigliani Scandal, the Da Vinci Code, Giotto’s Hand, The Music Lesson, or many such novel titles. Not possible with Gallery Pieces.
BooksAndAuthor.com: What did you learn from writing Gallery Pieces: An Art Mystery?
Larry Witham: I learned three things. First was a different approach to writing a novel. In my previous two novels, I wrote outlines and tried to make sure each step in the plot had a logical transition to the next one. In Gallery Pieces, I still had an outline (with an ending in mind), but used a different emphasis: I focused on writing compelling scenes. Each scene, for the most part, is a short chapter. After that, I worked on connecting the scenes. Some I cut out, others I merged, and I often stumbled upon new plot twists and solutions. I found this a more vivid way to write a novel than to simply plod from front to back. Second, as an informational matter, I learned a lot more about the world of hacking. It’s not only a technological wave, but a generational one. Gallery Pieces delves into the world of young anarchists who are hackers and “artists.” Third, this project increased my knowledge of the Nazi looting of art during World War II. There are a handful of excellent books on the topic, and reading them was a revelation. Actually, I learned a forth. As a result of marketing research for Gallery Pieces, I explored novels on art topics going back in history. I’ve found about 150 such novels, and am now writing a blog about their many and varied themes: “Novelists on Artists” http://novelistsonartists.blogspot.com
BooksAndAuthor.com: What do you hope to achieve with Gallery Pieces: An Art Mystery ?
Larry Witham: I admire fiction writing that is elegant, intelligent, witty—and as concise as possible. They say a novel must reach the emotions of the reader, but I’m not sure that’s my forte—or what I look for in a novel. I’m not sure what it means to “really care about” a fictitious character (since he or she really doesn’t exist!), though I do know what it means to tell a good story and to avoid annoying, implausible, and boring characters. I’m pretty much a, “Wow, this is interesting, well-written, and enjoyable, so what happens next?” type of novel reader. That’s the kind of entertainment I hope to offer in Gallery Pieces. I don’t foresee any weeping readers (a la Bridges of Madison County!), or people staying up all night because “they can’t put it down,” which is mostly an untrue cliché anyway. I hope to entertain and deliver some insights into the art world, the love of painting, the hacking culture, the generational divide, and art crime. And, yes, Julian Peale does change amid challenge in the story, as Aristotle requires. But he won’t ever be studied in lit classes like a Madame Bovary.
BooksAndAuthor.com: What's Next ?
Larry Witham: I have a second Julian Peale novel on the drawing board. However, its future will depend on how Gallery Pieces is received. As we all know, publishers watch an author’s sales record more than anything else. If no sales, there’s no next book contract (or little motivation to self-publish again). For all his allure, Julian Peale may go out in a one-off burst of glory. Or, maybe not.