by Francis Mallett (Author)
Closely based on existing archive material, this short novel tells the true story of the life of Austrian artist Richard Gerstl, who took his own life in 1908 at the age of 25. Émigré Viennese art dealer Otto Kallir narrates his chance discovery of Gerstl's paintings, which leads him on a journey through the art, music and history of the first half of the twentieth century. Gerstl was part of the tight circle around controversial composer Arnold Schoenberg, as well as a wider group of artists, musicians, architects and thinkers - Loos, Weininger, Freud, Kraus, Altenberg, Kokoschka, and Klimt among them. At the centre of Gerstl's story lies a fateful love affair with Mathilde Schoenberg, the composer's wife. Gerstl's life is gradually revealed through Kallir's investigations and interviews with those who knew him. Set against the rise of Adolf Hitler and Fascism, Kallir's equally extraordinary personal story runs parallel to Gerstl's. Kallir himself was eventually forced to flee Vienna for New York after the Nazi occupation in 1938.