Unbecoming [electronic resource] : a novel / Rebecca Scherm.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Viking, [2015]Description: 1 online resourceContent type:- text
- computer
- online resource
- General
- 9780698176386
- 813/.6 23
- PS3619.C3496 U63 2015
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Digital Content | Bedford Public Library Online Resource | eBook (Overdrive) | eBook | Available | 9780698176386 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
"Startlingly inventive." -- The New York Times Book Review
"A sheer delight to read . . . I had no idea what was going to happen from one page to the next." --Kate Atkinson
On the grubby outskirts of Paris, Grace restores bric-a-brac, mends teapots, re-sets gems. She calls herself Julie, says she's from California, and slips back to a rented room at night. Regularly, furtively, she checks the hometown paper on the Internet. Home is Garland, Tennessee, and there, two young men have just been paroled. One, she married; the other, she's in love with. Both were jailed for a crime that Grace herself planned in exacting detail. The heist went bad--but not before she was on a plane to Prague with a stolen canvas rolled in her bag. And so, in Paris, begins a cat-and-mouse waiting game as Grace's web of deception and lies unravels--and she becomes another young woman entirely.
Unbecoming is an intricately plotted and psychologically nuanced heist novel that turns on suspense and slippery identity. With echoes of Alfred Hitchcock and Patricia Highsmith, Rebecca Scherm's mesmerizing debut is sure to entrance fans of Gillian Flynn, Marisha Pessl, and Donna Tartt.
Electronic book.
Electronic reproduction. New York Penguin Publishing Group 2015 Available via World Wide Web.
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Different meanings of the word unbecoming play out in this debut novel of psychological suspense. As the story begins, Grace is working as an assistant to an art and antiques restorer in a seedy Parisian shop and checking the web for news from Garland, TN, her hometown. Grace's tale is gradually revealed. Growing up she was Riley Graham's inseparable pal, then his steady girl. Four years ago, Grace, Riley, and their friend Alls came up with an idea for a foolproof art heist from a local historic home. The heist went haywire. Riley and Alls got prison sentences, and Grace escaped to Europe and changed her name. Now the men have been paroled, and Grace is afraid that they will find her, expose her, and implicate her in the crime. Narrator Catherine Taber's Southern accent is perfect for the narration and the Tennessee characters. She voices New Yorkers and Parisians effectively. -VERDICT This would be an excellent addition to popular collections and a good choice for reading groups. ["Scherm's debut has a plot that twists and turns, but it is the enigma of who Grace really is that will keep readers hooked until the very end," read the review of the Viking hc, LJ 11/15/14.]-Nann Blaine Hilyard, formerly with Zion-Benton P.L., IL © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
Scherm's debut novel traces the transformation of a smalltown American girl into a professional international jewel thief. The novel opens in Paris, where 23-year-old Grace from Garland, Tenn., posing as Julie from California, earns a meager living restoring antiques and repairing jewelry. Grace's boss has her working on what are probably stolen items, and Grace is not above stealing a few gems herself, but her biggest worry is that her husband, Riley, and her onetime lover, Alls, both recently released from a Tennessee prison, will track her down. She hasn't been in touch with either since their arrest for a robbery Grace initiated before escaping to Europe in possession of a stolen painting. Through flashbacks, Scherm shows Grace, Riley, and Alls growing up together: Riley, the privileged son of a doctor and his nurturing wife; Grace, welcomed like a daughter by Riley's parents; Alls, raised without wealth or even a mother to become more dangerous than Riley. Scherm mixes a character study with a caper novel full of double-crosses, lies, and betrayals, as when Grace is robbed immediately after selling the stolen painting. She is at her best when describing precious objects: a Dutch master's still life, a James Mont cigar box with hidden compartment, an ornate centerpiece with fanciful fruit and figurines, and silver spoons ignored by their owners but appreciated by the professional hired to evaluate them. Agent: Susan Golomb, Susan Golomb Literary Agency. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.Kirkus Book Review
The epilogue to Scherm's debut novel would have made a terrific short story, or a film starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. The novel that precedes it is infinitely less interesting, primarily because of problems with pacing. The story of Grace, a nice Southern girl who ends up planning an art theft from the local heritage house with the help of her too-loyal boyfriend, Riley, and his friends, is told in flashback sections that take too long to get to the point. The point is, of course, the heist, and though Scherm's attention to detail is impressiveoutlining just where Grace got the skills (apprenticing for an appraiser in New York City) and the cunning to pull off such a bold maneuverthe result is a novel that feels lopsided. All the buildup is meant to make us care more about Grace's fate and the relationships among the characters, but it bogs the story down. When attempting to write in the vein of Hitchcock and Highsmith, authors should remember these masters' precise economy of style. This novel is unsuccessful precisely because it tries to make the mundane part of the action, though it just acts as a counterweight to what should be the excitement of crime. Family lives, childhoods, petty failures and their associated feelings are supposed to give the novel heft, but they really just distract from the elements that are the most exciting, to both Scherm (her writing is best when Grace is at her most wicked) and the reader. More thrills and less ponderous thinking about thrills would have made this an impressive first novel. Instead, it's a decidedly mixed bag, taking too long to gather the momentum it needs to succeed as crime fiction and not quite making the cut as satisfying literary fiction, either. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Rebecca Scherm is an American author of fiction. She received her MFA from the University of Michigan, where she was also a postgraduate Zell Fellow.Unbecoming is her debut novel which made the Best First Novel shortlist in the 2016 Edgar Awards.
(Bowker Author Biography)