In Search of a Family's Truth - an Editorial Review of "The Art Collector's Wife"

Book Blurb:

In 1962 Venice, Italy, seventeen-year-old Isabel is shoplifting and skipping class until she discovers a fantastical secret about her Holocaust survivor grandmother Lila: she has stashed away a collection of Renaissance Art. To be fair, it's not a complete surprise: Lila is secretive about the war and that dreadful time before when the whole living world came to a standstill. More than anything else, Isabel longs to know about her mother and father who perished. THE ART COLLECTOR'S WIFE is a story that travels across the canals of Venice all the way to the catacombs of Paris in search of a family's truth.

Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/rB9G2A

Author Bio:

THE ART COLLECTOR'S WIFE won First Place Historical Fiction, First Place Holocaust and Second Place Coming of Age from the 2025 Firebird Book Awards, a Gold Book Award from Literary Titan and was shortlisted for The Santa Fe Writing Project's 2023 Literary Awards Program. The novel reached the Scouting Programme at Cornerstones Literary Consultancy in London. Susan Knecht's narrative non-fiction was published in the Write On Mamas Anthology, and her short story THE HIJAB in THE GOOD REVIEW literary journal. She completed the two-year Online Novel Writing Certificate Program at Stanford University. Formerly a practicing psychotherapist in Northern California, Susan Knecht currently has a private therapy practice in Amsterdam. As a second-generation Holocaust survivor, she is keenly aware of the issues of exile, loss and the psychological devastation caused by being ‘othered.’

 THE ART COLLECTOR'S WIFE is her first novel.

“Highly recommended.” Midwest Book Review

Editorial Review:

Title: The Art Collector’s Wife

Author: Susan Knecht

Rating: 4.5 Stars

"The Art Collector's Wife," by Susan Knecht is a literary historical novel with elements of psychological drama and postwar trauma fiction. It explores survival, silence, and the enduring weight of memory through Lila, (a Jewish Holocaust survivor and former wife of a wealthy art collector now an aging woman struggling to keep her small shop and the secrets of her past, which include her son Leo’s death and a hidden art collection), and her granddaughter Isabel, a restless seventeen-year-old yearning for truth and freedom. She discovers that her grandmother is secretly sitting on a fortune- a collection of priceless painting. Desperate for money to escape to Paris for university and influenced by a dangerous boy named Niccolo, she gets involved in a plan to steal and sell one of the paintings. This leads her into serious trouble when she is kidnapped by criminals who want the entire art collection in exchange for her life.

"The two women hold fast to one another in the bunk, legs

intertwined. Shivering and trembling, puffs of breath "oating in

the frigid air. They have made it this far, Miriam because Lila

wouldn’t hear of anything else, and Lila simply to be with Leo once

more.

It is too cold to sleep for any length of time, and every few

minutes Lila checks on Miriam. Over the last month especially her

friend has grown worryingly thin and so Lila makes sure she still

can feel Miriam’s warm breath on her hand."

The grammar in this passage is clean, unembellished, and deliberate while the sentences flow in a rhythmic, almost breathless sequence that reflects the women’s fragile hold on life. There’s minimal punctuation here but clauses that beautifully balance action (“legs intertwined,” “puffs of breath floating”) with observation creating a cinematic intimacy. The use of the present tense intensifies immediacy inviting the reader to inhabit the moment rather than recall it. The image of “puffs of breath floating in the frigid air” is both literal and poetic with the breath here symbolizing life, and the intertwining of legs and the tactile act of feeling for Miriam’s breath evoking human warmth as the last defense against a world turned cruel. For the reader, the impression is one of suspended time and the fragility of existence in a single moment of compassion.

"She doesn’t know. His cloves and his warm breath, the searching fingers, the burning. It’s all a bit bizarre. She thought this was what she wanted, to be his girl on the motorbike. And she does want that still. But what about this painful strangeness after‐ wards? Like she’s become one of those girls, the ones that break some unbreakable law. Like she’s swimming too far out at sea. And what was it that Antonia was always saying? “Don’t go to the bars at night unless you’re with me. And don’t trust any men, especially the young ones,” she said. “They’ll love you all right and then…” She’d drawn a line across her bare throat. \what about this. What’s happening here?”

This passage moves away from the cold endurance of the prologue into something warmer on the surface, but just as uneasy underneath. The grammar and structure give it that impression. The sentences are short, slightly broken, as if the thoughts come too fast or in pieces, in a rhythm that makes it feel like the character is trying to understand what has just happened to her but can’t yet form it into clear meaning. The sensory details are vivid but uncomfortable, suggesting desire mixed with invasion, a moment that is supposed to be romantic but instead leaves a feeling of detachment. The impression it leaves is one of unease and the sense of someone learning painfully what it means to be vulnerable.

"That’s enough now. You’re scaring me.” Miriam grabs Lila’s

arm and drags her inside to the parlor where she sits her down in

an overstuffed armchair, the velvet fabric coarse against Lila’s

sweaty hands. “So?” Miriam #xes her with an expectant look. “Spit

it out.”

If only Lila could spit it out, the trajectory such news would

make across the tiled Venetian rooftops, across miles of land and

water all the way to Poland, that other poisonous place, over long

miles it would "y. Her granddaughter tied to a chair somewhere,

Lila grips the velvet armrests, is too much poison to swallow."

This passage is charged with tension and memory. It feels like a sudden collision between present and past. The structure here is sharp and cinematic- quick commands, physical motion, and then an abrupt turn inward and the dialogue (“That’s enough now. You’re scaring me.” / “Spit it out.”) cutting through the narrative like blades, contrasting with the slower, almost poetic reflection that follows. The grammar alternates between realism and stream of consciousness creating a rhythm of control and loss which is shown through Miriam’s firmness versus Lila’s spiraling thoughts. The passage leaves the reader suspended between empathy and dread as the impossibility of confession for a life built on survival and silence turns an ordinary conversation into something lethal, with Knecht blending domestic realism and psychological terror, to create an emotional explosion contained entirely within Lila’s mind.

"The Art Collector’s Wife" by Susan Knecht stands out as a unique and emotionally layered take on familiar historical terrain that while many novels address the Holocaust and its aftermath, Knecht approaches the subject through an unusual lens showing the skill of a writer with a strong grasp of moral complexity, atmosphere, and human vulnerability. Fans of complex, character-driven narratives, readers drawn to postwar fiction that examines the long emotional and ethical shadows of the Holocaust, lovers of art and moral mystery who are intrigued by the way art becomes a carrier of memory and guilt and readers interested in intergenerational trauma and family secrets who appreciate how the past seeps quietly into the present will love this one.

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