From Publishers Weekly
John James Audubon is seen through a dark lens in this fictional take on a particularly rocky period in his tumultuous life. Told from the perspective of the ornithologist in his ailing old age, Brown's brooding psychological novel chronicles in complicated, gothic style an episode that has long haunted its protagonist. At the age of 36, Audubon leaves his wife and children behind in Cincinnati and sets off for New Orleans to begin his quixotic life's work, "to identify, observe, and draw every species of this country's winged inhabitants." He secures a position as a tutor on a Louisiana plantation, but his relatively comfortable life is disturbed by the arrival of visitors. Dr. Emile Gautreaux, an anatomist and voyeur "seeking to explain the body's exquisite grandeur," has been eager to meet Audubon, and in fact wishes to become his patron. This is good news, but Audubon is shaken when he sees Dr. Gautreaux's beautiful wife, Myra, step down from their carriage: he has met her before, in less than respectable circumstances. The very night of the couple's arrival, Myra dies suddenly and mysteriously, and in a prolonged scene, Audubon and Dr. Gautreaux stand watch over her corpse. Gautreaux, whose morally compromised life Brown examines meticulously, is as much the protagonist of this novel as Audubon. His and Audubon's guilty secrets, suspicions and shameful desires are given full airing in a story adorned with bird images and mildly graphic sexual encounters. There are few moments of humor or cheer in this stream-of-consciousness study of two men whose genuine interests in science and nature were ruined by lust and its consequent remorse, but Brown (Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery) provides a delicate rendition of gloomy themes. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This historical novel by the author of Decorations in a Ruined Cemetry attempts to re-create a little-known moment in the life of ornithologist John James Audubon. Around 1821, Audubon realized that he was not going to make a living as a portraitist and conceived his grand plan to observe and draw all of the birds in North America. In this story, he meets the fictional physician Emile Gautreaux and his wife, Myra, at a plantation where he teaches the owner's daughter music and painting. When the Gautreauxs arrive by carriage, Myra collapses and dies. Emile asks Audubon to sit with the dead body overnight to help keep away the evil spirits. Thirty years later, on his deathbed, Audubon summons Gautreauxwhom he has not seen since that nightto unburden his soul. Both men bear secrets about Myra and her mysterious death and thus have been subconsciously linked ever since that time. Part mystery and part historical novel, this tale is told by both men in alternating chapters. While it is a well-written book that deals with the themes of death, regret, and our place in the world, the characters are not fully engaging. Recommended for larger collections with well-developed historical fiction sections.Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Audubon's Watch…focuses on the moral topography of love. . . . Brown creates a Southern Victorian prose voice: grand, self-absorbed, ultimately fearful."
Book Description
From the acclaimed author of Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, Audubon"s Watch is "a brazen performance" (New York Times Book Review) inspired by a brief journal entry made by the artist and ornithologist John James Audubon. This richly atmospheric novel traces the paths of two men whose lives are inextricably linked by the tragic events of a single night. Part historical novel, part Victorian murder mystery, Audubon"s Watch "peels away the familiar legend portion of the biography to explore the private mysteries of memory, remorse, and the redemption of pain" (Los Angeles Times). This is a mesmerizing tale, and "in the end, the subject matter of Brown"s material . . . permits him to capture, in midflight as it were, the hummingbird pulse of the human heart" (Orlando Sentinel).
About the Author
John Gregory Brown lives in Virginia and teaches creative writing at Sweet Briar College. He is the author of The Wrecked, Blessed Body of Shelton LaFleur and Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, which received a Steinbeck Award and the Lillian Smith Award. Audubon's Watch was selected as the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year.
Audubon's Watch: A Novel FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Having failed as a businessman and a portraitist, Audubon in 1821 is just begining to formulate his grand design to draw all the birds of America. Artist and scientist, aristocrat and wayfaring outcast, he is ambitious, reckless, and naive. Such is his state of mind when visitors arrive from New Orleans: a scandal-ridden physician and anatomist named Emile Gautreaux and his stunning wife, Myra. When Myra collapses and dies, the distraught Gautreaux believe she has been murdered. He asks the young tutor to sit with him through the long night, keeping watch over her body. The two men do not meet again for decades, until Audubon summons Gautreaux to his New York estate. The mystery of Myra's death has linked them inextricably over time, as each has harbored secrets and deceptions."--BOOK JACKET.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
John James Audubon is seen through a dark lens in this fictional take on a particularly rocky period in his tumultuous life. Told from the perspective of the ornithologist in his ailing old age, Brown's brooding psychological novel chronicles in complicated, gothic style an episode that has long haunted its protagonist. At the age of 36, Audubon leaves his wife and children behind in Cincinnati and sets off for New Orleans to begin his quixotic life's work, "to identify, observe, and draw every species of this country's winged inhabitants." He secures a position as a tutor on a Louisiana plantation, but his relatively comfortable life is disturbed by the arrival of visitors. Dr. Emile Gautreaux, an anatomist and voyeur "seeking to explain the body's exquisite grandeur," has been eager to meet Audubon, and in fact wishes to become his patron. This is good news, but Audubon is shaken when he sees Dr. Gautreaux's beautiful wife, Myra, step down from their carriage: he has met her before, in less than respectable circumstances. The very night of the couple's arrival, Myra dies suddenly and mysteriously, and in a prolonged scene, Audubon and Dr. Gautreaux stand watch over her corpse. Gautreaux, whose morally compromised life Brown examines meticulously, is as much the protagonist of this novel as Audubon. His and Audubon's guilty secrets, suspicions and shameful desires are given full airing in a story adorned with bird images and mildly graphic sexual encounters. There are few moments of humor or cheer in this stream-of-consciousness study of two men whose genuine interests in science and nature were ruined by lust and its consequent remorse, but Brown (Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery)provides a delicate rendition of gloomy themes. (Sept. 14) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Children's Literature
Audubon's Watch is by turns elegant and manic, gloomy and ecstatic. Like the work of Edgar Allan Poe, it is filled with images of dark sensuality that are either forbidden or, worse, are attained and then lost. The famed ornithologist is on his deathbed, remembering the long-ago demise of a scandal-plagued anatomist's wife. Chapters alternate between John James Audubon's memories and those of the widower's, and it's hard to tell who suffers more. Dr. Emile Gautreaux can never be the same now that his beloved Myra is dead, and he is tortured by the possibility that she may have been murdered—or that she may have committed suicide. Audubon's pain is based in guilt, because he not only coveted Myra, he possessed her adulterously. The elaborate prose contains some fairly blunt descriptions of sexual congress, which might make younger readers giggle. Adolescents who adore Anne Rice and Buffy the Vampire Slayer might like this book—and that is not meant as a slam to either of those genres, or to Brown. Not everyone is willing to put the work into this book that it deserves, but those who are will find it intriguing and unsettling. 2001, Houghton Mifflin, $24.00. Ages 13 up. Reviewer: Donna Freedman AGES: 13 14 15 16 17 18
Library Journal
This historical novel by the author of Decorations in a Ruined Cemetry attempts to re-create a little-known moment in the life of ornithologist John James Audubon. Around 1821, Audubon realized that he was not going to make a living as a portraitist and conceived his grand plan to observe and draw all of the birds in North America. In this story, he meets the fictional physician Emile Gautreaux and his wife, Myra, at a plantation where he teaches the owner's daughter music and painting. When the Gautreauxs arrive by carriage, Myra collapses and dies. Emile asks Audubon to sit with the dead body overnight to help keep away the evil spirits. Thirty years later, on his deathbed, Audubon summons Gautreauxwhom he has not seen since that nightto unburden his soul. Both men bear secrets about Myra and her mysterious death and thus have been subconsciously linked ever since that time. Part mystery and part historical novel, this tale is told by both men in alternating chapters. While it is a well-written book that deals with the themes of death, regret, and our place in the world, the characters are not fully engaging. Recommended for larger collections with well-developed historical fiction sections.Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Brown (The Wrecked, Blessed Body of Shelton Lafleur, 1996, etc.) takes Audubon to New Orleans in 1821, where a dark experience marks him for 30 years-though it may do less to a reader. At 36, Audubon is married with two sons-but as yet no artistic success. Off he goes downriver (from his then-home in Ohio) to make his fortune as a bird-artist-and is approached by a gorgeous, unnamed woman who asks if he'll draw her-in the buff. All right, except that when this liberated lady comes over-in the buff-to have a look behind the easel, Audubon can help himself no longer and falls upon her, though matters aren't completed before she hastens away into the night. Who could she have been? Just imagine Audubon's discomfiture when later, at the luxe sugar-cane plantation where he tutors the planter's teenaged daughter (a minx), family friend Dr. Emile Gautreaux arrives for a visit with his wife Myra, who-is the naked woman! Worse, Myra then very suddenly dies, and the addled Audubon is coerced into staying up all night with Gautreaux, sitting by the body. The story is recollected-by Audubon and Gautreaux in turns-years later, when the dying Audubon calls Gautreaux to his bedside. As he travels toward Audubon, Gautreaux thinks about the past, and Audubon does the same in his bed ("speaking" to his two daughters, both dead since infancy). Much is parallel between the two men, both being scientist-artists in search of nature's "truth" (a scholar of anatomy, Gautraux was fiercely maligned for using cadavers). If there's doubt that they'll find the "truth" of Myra's death (was she murdered?), there's none at all that Brown's symbols are heavy (a hurricane, Audubon's birds, Gautraux's wife) and hislanguage archaically elevated ("Perhaps you know already the perplexing intoxication of desire, its fearful might"). Ambitious, effortful, acutely researched-but lithe it isn't, with portent equal to content
Art & Photography
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