The Swan Thieves: A Novel by Elizabeth Kostova
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This book is far longer than it needed to be. After page 100, I completely skipped all the 18th century France scenes. The book is filled with just the kinds of characters you’d expect to meet in an MFA creative writing assignment: Marlow, the psychoanalyst who (of course) fails to psychoanalyze himself; Marlow’s father, the judge-not-lest-ye-be-judged milquetoast of a retired cleric who (of course) diagnoses his son’s problems; the tortured artist Robert Oliver.
Robert meets the two main female characters in obnoxious meetcute scenes that would have been cut out of any self-respecting Hollywood B-movie slated for a Thanskgiving release. The female characters are strong, and the ending is satisfying. But the descriptions of Robert’s relationships go on far too long. In a development that ultimately leads nowhere, we even meet Robert’s wife’s mother (of course, this is all to show the difficulties of life in the sandwich generation.)
