The Muse

The novel alternates between two timelines, weaving a mystery about art, identity, and authorship. In 1967 London, Odelle Bastien narrates in retrospect, while the 1936 chapters follow the Schloss family and the Robles siblings in southern Spain through a third-person perspective.

In June 1967, Odelle is a 26-year-old Trinidadian immigrant who has spent five years in England unable to find work befitting her first-class English Literature degree due to racial discrimination. When she is offered a typist position at the Skelton Institute of Art, signed by Marjorie Quick, Odelle is overjoyed. Quick, a glamorous woman in her early fifties, works alongside the institute's director, Edmund Reede, and takes a pointed interest in Odelle's writing ambitions, confiding that Odelle reminds her of someone she once knew.

Odelle's best friend, Cynthia, marries and moves away, deepening Odelle's isolation. At the wedding reception, Odelle meets Lawrie Scott, a young man whose mother recently died. He shows her a small, frameless painting: a girl holding another girl's severed head, with a lion nearby and the initials "I.R." in the corner. Weeks later, Lawrie brings the painting to the Skelton. Quick reacts with visible shock and flees. Reede, however, is captivated and takes the painting to his office.

The narrative shifts to January 1936 and the village of Arazuelo in Andalusia. Olive Schloss, a 19-year-old aspiring painter, has moved there with her parents: Harold Schloss, a Viennese-Jewish art dealer, and his English wife, Sarah, who has severe depression. Olive has secretly been accepted to the Slade School of Fine Art but has hidden this from her father, who believes women cannot be true artists. She paints secretly in the attic of the family's rented finca, a Spanish farmhouse.

Isaac Robles, a 26-year-old local who teaches lithography and supports left-wing political causes, arrives at the finca with his half-sister, Teresa Robles, who is 16 but claims to be 18. Teresa becomes the family's servant and develops a close friendship with Olive. She tells Olive the story of Saints Rufina and Justa, two Christian sisters in Roman Seville: Justa was thrown down a well, and Rufina was sent to face a lion that refused to attack her, so the authorities beheaded her. The story captivates Olive and inspires her subsequent paintings.

When Harold plans to unveil a portrait Isaac has been painting for Sarah, Teresa secretly swaps it with Olive's painting Santa Justa in the Well. Harold is deeply moved but believes Isaac painted it. Olive decides to let the deception stand, reasoning her father would never value the work if he knew she created it. Isaac reluctantly agrees. Harold takes the painting to Paris, where Peggy Guggenheim, a prominent American art collector, purchases it. Olive and Isaac begin a romantic relationship, and her creative output surges.

In 1967, Odelle eavesdrops as Reede reveals that the Prado, Spain's national art museum, has sent a photograph of Isaac Robles standing beside a half-finished canvas matching Lawrie's painting. Quick is present but visibly distressed. On the back of the photograph, Odelle finds the inscription "O and I"; the unnamed woman in the image is holding a paintbrush. Quick invites Odelle to her Wimbledon cottage, encouraging Odelle's writing but cautioning her about Reede's exhibition plans. When Lawrie takes Odelle to his family's house in Surrey, he tells her he loves her and reveals that his mother died by suicide. Odelle cannot reciprocate his feelings, and they stop speaking for weeks.

In 1936, the deception expands. Olive paints prolifically under Isaac's name, sending works to Guggenheim through Teresa. Isaac grows anguished, feeling his identity has been stolen. Olive begins her most ambitious work, Rufina and the Lion, using Teresa as her model. Teresa has a photograph taken of Olive and Isaac before the unfinished painting. In July, the Spanish Civil War erupts.

In October 1967, Quick submits Odelle's short story to the London Review without permission, and it is published. Quick then reveals she has late-stage pancreatic cancer and declares that Isaac Robles did not paint the picture. Odelle discovers the Scott family's address in Quick's telephone book and, separately, a letter accepting Olive Schloss to the Slade along with a 1936 telegram from Guggenheim. Odelle suspects Quick is connected to Olive, but Quick locks her out of the house.

Odelle reconciles with both Cynthia and Lawrie. At the Scott family house, Lawrie's stepfather Gerry reveals that Lawrie's mother was previously married to Harold Schloss and that Lawrie's birth name was Schloss, changed to avoid anti-German prejudice during the war. Lawrie admits he recognized the name when Reede mentioned it but could not bring himself to reveal the connection.

In September 1936, the war reaches Arazuelo. As an act of political rebellion, Isaac burns down the estate belonging to his father, Don Alfonso, a powerful local figure who manages the duchess's lands, along with the village church, and goes into hiding. Don Alfonso's men capture Teresa, publicly humiliating her and demanding she reveal Isaac's location. She refuses. Olive rescues Teresa and shaves her own head in solidarity.

Teresa eventually tells Olive where Isaac is hiding. Olive goes to the shepherd's hut at night and discovers Isaac and her mother together. Sarah is visibly pregnant. Devastated, Olive fires a shot through the roof. After she and Isaac say goodbye outside, Jorge, one of Don Alfonso's enforcers drawn by the gunshot, shoots Isaac in the head. He then pursues and kills Olive.

In November 1967, Odelle rushes to Quick's cottage and finds her dead, sitting upright in a kitchen chair. Quick is bald; she had been wearing a wig. The post-mortem reveals a lethal overdose of painkillers; the death is ruled accidental, though Odelle suspects it was deliberate. The exhibition, "The Swallowed Century," opens the next evening, featuring Lawrie's painting alongside Guggenheim loans, all attributed to Isaac Robles. Reviews are mixed.

The 1936 aftermath, told from Teresa's perspective, reveals that Olive is buried under an olive tree. Sarah takes Rufina and the Lion for herself. Harold arranges for Teresa to leave Spain using Olive's identity papers; Teresa ensures his cooperation by threatening to reveal his affair with a German woman. On the ship to England, Teresa meets the young Edmund Reede, who offers her a card for the Foreign Office.

In a final chapter set in 2002, Odelle reveals that Quick has left her the Wimbledon cottage and a written account of her life as Teresa Robles. The folder holds everything Quick could not say aloud: how she came to England, assumed a new identity, and kept Olive's secret for over 30 years, honoring Olive's wish for anonymity.

Odelle chooses never to tell Lawrie that Quick is possibly his aunt or that the paintings are by Olive rather than Isaac, knowing that disclosure would betray Olive's secrecy and could destroy the painting's value. Lawrie's paternity remains ambiguous, as Sarah's affair with Isaac overlaps with her marriage to Harold. Lawrie sells the painting and moves to America; he and Odelle drift apart. Odelle stays in London, writing at Quick's typewriter in the cottage she inherits. Rufina and the Lion eventually finds its way to the National Gallery. Decades later, Odelle decides to write the full story as a testament to Olive Schloss's hidden genius and the web of art, identity, and silence that connects them all.