The Parisian Heist Bonus Book Club
Bad On Paper
Hosts Becca Freeman and Olivia Mentor discuss the novel The Parisian Heist by Jo Piazza as part of their final Summer of Sol bonus book club
Key takeaways
- The novel features a dual timeline: one focusing on Jo Van Gogh's efforts to market Vincent Van Gogh's work, and another set in 1996 involving an art heist.
- The hosts discuss the real-life 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft where thieves disguised as police officers stole works worth over $500 million.
Main topics
- The Parisian Heist book review
- Art crime history
Notable quotes
Being rich is hard.
Conclusion
This episode provides an engaging deep dive into art-centric fiction a
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:17) Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Bad on Paper podcast. I'm Becca Freeman. And I'm Olivia Mentor. And today is a bonus book club. Speaker 1 (0:26) Yes, it is our final bonus book club episode in this partnership, which we have loved so much. But I'm excited to talk about the Parisian heist with you, even if I'm sad for this to be the last of our bonus book club episodes for now. Speaker 2 (0:39) 100 % agree. So as Olivia alluded, this episode is sponsored by Sol de Janeiro, the Brazilian-inspired self-care brand we've been partnering with all summer long on our Summer of Sol. And this is our last bonus book club episode, but we have details on a final giveaway later in the episode that you won't want to miss. Speaker 1 (1:01) Well, let's get into a quick summary of this novel, which I wrote, and I will admit. was hard to get everything in there because there is a lot in this Speaker 2 (1:09) book. Well, tell me what you came up with. Speaker 1 (1:12) This dual timeline historical fiction novel follows a cast of bold female characters as they navigate the often male-dominated art world. In the distant past, we follow Claire, who is a close friend and business partner of... Yo Van Gogh, the famous painter Vincent Van Gogh's sister-in-law. And true to history, Yo's mission is to make Vincent's work marketable after his death and lack of success as an artist during his lifetime. And in the more recent timeline, which is set in 1996, we meet Emma, a struggling artist in her mid-20s who finds herself involved with one of the richest and most powerful art families in the world. And as we go further in the story, secrets are revealed. And of course... There is a very daring art heist. Speaker 2 (1:56) Okay, Olivia, how did this book work for you? I Speaker 1 (1:59) enjoyed it. I mean, I don't read a lot of historical fiction in general. I really liked Joe's last historical fiction novel, The Sicilian Inheritance. And I'm not a huge art world person in fiction or really in life. I mean, I have an appreciation for art and beauty, but I'm not. someone who can rattle off like 10 contemporary artists or maybe even five. I'm not an art buff, let's just say that. But yes, I thought this read quickly. It was enjoyable. I liked the way the timelines interacted. There were some moments that really delighted me. So yeah, I thought it was, it kind of felt like a historical fiction beach read. Yeah. It had a little bit of everything. But I know you don't really read historical fiction either. So how did it work for you? Speaker 2 (2:48) I loved this. I feel like this was my love for an art world novel battling it out with my general apathy for a historical novel. And I netted out very positively on this one. I did it on audio and I kept finding myself being like, yeah, I can walk another loop around the block. I can find some errands to do to keep listening. Like I found the pace to be really. snappy. And I loved like it ended on a lot of cliffhangers on the chapter endings. And I just kept myself like cruising along. I Speaker 1 (3:24) kept forgetting that the more recent past timeline was in the 90s. And there was one point where he pulled out his cell phone and it was like a huge and I had to go Speaker 2 (3:33) back. Same. Same. I Speaker 1 (3:35) literally was like, wait. And I had totally missed that it was set in 1996. Same. Completely. And then I was like, oh, of course. It kind of has to, you know, for this to... Why does it have to? Well, I think it being set in a time, and I listened to an interview with Joe Piazza about this. By the way, the fact that one of the characters is named Joe, but it's pronounced Yo, and the author is named Joe, but then often in interviews will refer to Yo as Joe, will confuse me. But are we going to go with the... Dutch pronunciation throughout this episode? I'm going with Yo Van Speaker 2 (4:12) Gogh. I listened to the audio, so it's in there. Speaker 1 (4:15) Okay, great. Yo it is. Jo was saying in this interview that I listened to that she wanted to set it in time before people could easily Google all of these things instantly. Speaker 2 (4:25) I see. I was wondering if it had to do with the security systems or the sophistication of pulling off the art heist would be impossible now, although there was just an art heist at the Louvre that was pretty low tech, so it doesn't seem impossible. Speaker 1 (4:40) Yes, maybe that was part of it that crossed my mind. But it's funny because I usually really appreciate when it's very clear that cell phones, computers aren't. well, computers existed, of course, and cell phones did too, but they're not in the world the way they are now in books. Like it feels refreshing to me. Like I loved that about Almost Life. And yeah, but I liked it. I enjoyed it. I thought the 90s like party scene of it all was very fun too. Speaker 2 (5:06) Yes, I agree. And I love the 90s art world references. Like at one point, somebody brings up Jeff Koons and they're like, he's a hack. He's never going to make it, which is so funny because Speaker 1 (5:17) Jeff Speaker 2 (5:17) Koons is such a... famous artist that fetches such high prices. Speaker 1 (5:22) That I do know. That I do know. The one question I had, I meant to look this up and it didn't occur to me until now. I know Damien Hirst is a real artist, but the piece that they mentioned with the cow being cut in half and put in formaldehyde and displayed, is that true? Speaker 2 (5:38) I assume so. I know Damien Hirst more so for his pill art, but I could imagine this to be true. Speaker 1 (5:47) Oh, yeah. I'm looking at it right now. I don't want to see that. It's not great. And it's also one of them is a baby cow. Oh, no. Not a fan. Anyway, I liked those little tidbits that I could pick up on throughout for sure. But did you prefer the 90s timeline or did you like the older one more? I Speaker 2 (6:08) strongly preferred the 90s timeline, which is not a surprise because I'm not a historical fiction girl. I liked the story that the more historical timeline told. Like, I thought it was interesting. It was not something I knew about, about Yo Van Gogh making Vincent Van Gogh famous and that Vincent Van Gogh was largely painting in obscurity in his own lifetime. So I thought it was interesting, but I was reading more of the present chapters personally. Speaker 1 (6:40) Yeah, I would agree with you. I think... It's tough because we have these two main characters in, I'm going to call it the past timeline, even though they're both the past. And you have Yo and you have her friend Claire, and it's told through Claire's eyes. And I listened to that interview with Joe Piazza, and she was saying that she did this because she didn't feel comfortable writing from the perspective of Yo, who was very much a real person. And this was very much her life story. The whole book is inspired by what Yo Van Gogh did for Vince Van Gogh's career and how she's really the reason he became famous. But I got that because you don't want to put emotional arcs into someone's head who actually existed or put them into existence, I should say, without being able to fact check them. And Speaker 2 (7:31) we've actually talked about that on the podcast with... Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld. And I said that it made me feel a little uncomfy to see a fictionalized portrayal of a real person. And even though Yo Van Gogh is much further back in history, so I might feel less uncomfortable with it. Like I appreciated that choice, even if it felt slight. strange to me at first, but I would say that it all clicked together for me once we found out that Claire was Stella's grandmother. Speaker 1 (8:06) Yes, there were a lot of moments of clicking together, and those were the moments where I really enjoyed the novel the most, I think. It was a really satisfying read. The tough thing, as much as I understand the choice of the story being told through Claire's perspective and not Yo's, is that It made it really hard for me to understand some of the things happening. Like, I didn't quite get why Yo was so obsessed with making Vincent successful. Like, I understand that this was something she felt very strongly about, but I was like, but why? Is it because of your husband or is it his brother and how close they were? Is it just because you really want to make a career yourself and you want to have this? legacy? Is it because, I don't know, you know, like I wanted to understand it more emotionally. And Speaker 2 (9:00) I Speaker 1 (9:00) think it's hard when you have that distance, but I understand why she made that choice. Do Speaker 2 (9:03) you know what I'm saying at all? I do. I thought her talk with Claire at the end and one of the last chapters where she talked about guilt, that she felt like she had indirectly contributed to Vincent's death. by entering the picture. I think that kind of helped me to understand more. But I get what you're saying because at the beginning of the book, it was obviously like she was a young widow with a son and had no means to support herself. And so it made sense to sell these paintings that she had. But then in the middle, it did feel like financially she was much more stable and there was less need for her to continue on this, you know, difficult trajectory. Although at the same time, like thinking about the time period, there were not any real career options for her outside of, you know, she was running a boarding house at one point. You know, you could take in washing, mending, things like that. But like her proximity to him made her a player in the art world in a way that she couldn't be if she was like, hey, I'm hanging my shingle. I'm an art dealer now. Speaker 1 (10:14) Yeah. No, definitely. I guess I just wish there was like, like, is it you're fame hungry? Is it duty? Is it the fact that you're super ambitious? I just wanted the one thing to