The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

I could not stop reading Dominic Smith's new novel The Electric Hotel. I was transported back in time to the heady early days of film, disturbed by a trek into the horrors of WWI, and enthralled by the vivid characters and their stories, especially the tragic story of unrequited love.

Claude Ballard's cutting-edge, notorious 1910 film The Electric Hotel had impelled audience to high emotion. It was his highest achievement, but it came crashing down when Thomas Edison sued his company for copyright infringement--as he did all his competition, seeking a monopoly on the film industry.

Claude has not seen a movie since 1920 when in 1962 a grad student in filmography seeks him out. He realizes he has been "pickling" himself for thirty years, holed up in a hotel filled with other aging film industry has-beens, his hoard of film decaying from vinegar syndrome.

"He'd witnessed and photographed the passing of a golden, burnished epoch." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

As Claude answers Martin's questions and shares his hoard of decaying canisters of film, he revisits his early life and ascent from a French farmer's son who in 1895 was mesmerized by the early Lumiere films, how he became a noted movie maker, then while bravely filming WWI he was taken by the German army, always haunted by the film actress who broke his heart.

"When I dream of that old life I see it like a strip of burning celluloid. It smokes and curls in the air, but it's impossible to hold between my fingers." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

Sabine Montrose had beauty but no heart. She arrived in Paris as a teenager and fled when men pursued her. She learned to act and to use men but never would give her heart. Claude became one of her victims when the older woman took him into her bed for one night only. Claude was caught in her web, filmed her and made her an international star, forever hoping that Sabine would allow him into her life once again.

"Loving a woman was like that...was chasing smoke." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

The son of a failed nickelodeon owner, Hal was the theater owner who ran Claude's films; the small, spunky boy Chip was the burning man in a circus act when he joined the company as a stuntman. Sabine's mysterious mentor Pavel was always at her side.

The mystery of what happened pulled me along like a magnet, but I cherished every sentence of the gorgeous writing and would not skip a line.

Smith was impressed by the quality and art of the early movies he viewed during his research. What treasures have been lost? The Electric Hotel is an actual 1908 film recently rediscovered. I viewed it online here. A couple take a room in a hotel in which stop-action animated luggage takes itself up the elevator and unpacks itself. Brushes clean the traveler's boots. I can imagine the impact on audiences over 100 years ago!

"People wanted escape, sure, but first they wanted the shock of recognition." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

I previously read Smith's novels The Mercury Visions of Louise Daguerre and read and reviewed The Last Painting of Sara DeVos.

Read an excerpt at  http://www.dominicsmith.net/pdfs/excerpts/Eletric_Hotel_Excerpt.pdf

I was given access to an egalley through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Electric Hotel: A Novel
by Dominic Smith
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sarah Crichton Books
Pub Date 04 Jun 2019
ISBN 9780374146856
PRICE $27.00 (USD)

Forgeries and Fakes: The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

Ellie was a twenty-six-year-old grad student working in art conservation when she was asked to make a copy of a 17th c painting by a female Dutch painter. The copy is her masterpiece. Ellie is complicit when the original painting is stolen and replaced with Ellie's copy. 

The painting's owner Marty recognized that his heirloom had been replaced with a forgery. He hired a private detective who leads him to Ellie. Marty assumes a fake identity to get close to Ellie. Each is hiding a truth, but find themselves drawn to each other. Their deceptions bring ruin into both their lives.

Forty years pass and Ellie and Marty are reunited when he loans his painting to the exhibit she is curating. Marty is full of regret as he faces coming death. Ellie's complicity haunts her; she knows she has built a house of cards and is certain her youthful indiscretion will be revealed.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith is related in three time periods, tracing the history of a painting over four centuries. The struggles and losses of Sara de Vos, a painter during the Dutch Golden Age, is told interspersed between the storyline of Marty and Ellie in the late 1950s when Ellie forges Sara's painting, and in the 2000s when Ellie and Marty are reunited.

I enjoyed reading this book. The writing is beautiful with lovely turns of phrases and memorable epigrams. Rooms 'bloat with darkness', a lie 'comes effortlessly, a deadbolt sliding into a groove." Ellie 'tries to uncover a breadcrumb trail of moral failure" in her history. 

There is psychological depth to Marty and Ellie as they struggle with moral decisions and their consequences. Regret, Marty says to Ellie, doesn't eat you alive; it keeps you alive. Marty's reflections on old age are darkly humorous. I do wish there had been a fourth time period in the novel; the missing 40 years would have been profoundly interesting, a time when Marty and Ellie hit rock bottom and had to rebuild their lives.

Sara de Vos was inspired by a real Dutch female painter. Sara's paintings are vividly described. Descriptions of the craft of painting in the 17th c and when Ellie makes her copy reveal the fatal flaw in Ellie's forgery. 

To read more about Dutch female painters of the 17th c. check out

Three Women Painters of the Dutch Golden Age

I realized I had read this author's book The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre some years ago and had enjoyed it.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

Dominic Smith

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

$26.00 hard cover

ISBN: 9780374106683

Publication Date: April 5, 2016