出版社/著者からの内容紹介
「姿を見ずに肖像画を描いてほしい」その奇妙な依頼は 画家を虜にする……
19世紀末のニューヨーク。肖像画家のピアンボに突然声をかけてきたのは、両目が白濁した盲目の男。シャルビューク夫人の使いと称し、法外な報酬を口にして、肖像画の製作を依頼してきた。ただし、屏風の向こうで夫人が語る過去の話とその声だけで、姿かたちを推測しなければならない、という奇妙な条件付きで。
謎の霊薬、人糞占い師。血の涙を流しては死に至る奇病の流行夫人の荒唐無稽な語りを聞くようになってからというもの、ピアンボの周辺でも不可思議な事が次々と起こるようになり……。
世界幻想文学大賞、エドガー賞受賞の鬼才が贈る、クロスジャンルの最高傑作!
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From Publishers Weekly
Ford expertly created a surreal alternate landscape in his acclaimed fantasies The Physiognomy and Memoranda; here, in his fourth novel, sepia-colored old New York is the fever-dream world. Piero Piambo is the portraitist of choice among New York's nouveau riche in 1893, but his career fills him with self-loathing. When a blind man with uncannily white eyes offers him "a job like no other" painting the mysterious Mrs. Charbuque Piambo quickly accepts, as the hefty commission will allow him to abandon society portraiture. But the terms of the deal are very strange: Mrs. Charbuque insists that she will hide behind a screen; to divine what she looks like, Piambo may ask her questions, but not about her appearance. It soon becomes clear that she will not be interrogated; instead, like a possibly "unhinged" Scheherazade, she mesmerizes Piambo with her story of growing up convinced she possessed psychic powers conferred on her by twin snowflakes. Piambo's opium-addicted friend Shenz convinces him to investigate his mysterious model, leading them to interview a deranged "turdologist" who sheds light on her past. But then Piambo is assaulted by a man identifying himself as Mr. Charbuque, demanding to know why the artist is "seeing my wife." And there are other dangers about, as the city is under attack by a parasite that eats "the soft tissue of the eye" and causes its victims to weep blood. Add dangerously unstable characters speaking with delicious floridity, unexpected bursts of macabre humor and violence, and a gender-bending subplot that subtly picks up steam, and you have a standout literary thriller.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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