By Page H. Gifford
Correspondent
John D. Lyons will discuss his mystery novel, Arcadia, with Friends of the Library on Nov. 5 at 10 a.m. Lyons taught French and Italian film and literature for half a century at Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia. He is the author of ten books, including Before Imagination and Tragedy and the Return of the Dead, and the editor of many others. He is a member of the Légion d’Honneur.
Arcadia is his first novel, focusing on a young protagonist, art historian Gregory Byrne, who takes a teaching job at Thornton College in Vermont. While selecting textbooks for his course, he settles into the office of his predecessor, Volker Baum. He soon learns that Baum had been found dead in a pool of blood in his room at the American Academy in Rome. It doesn’t take long for Greg to learn that the idyllic campus is full of secrets. He wondered if there could be a key to these secrets in the work of the Baroque artist whom Baum and Greg both study, Nicolas Poussin. Among Poussin’s paintings was the enigmatic “Shepherds of Arcadia,” which depicts three young men trying to decipher a fragmentary Latin inscription.
As Greg works against the clock to finish a book on coded meanings in Baroque painting and thus secure tenure, the newspapers report that the British intelligence agency MI5 has admitted that the world’s leading expert on Poussin was a spy, a double agent working on behalf of the Soviets. Does all this fit together? Or is Gregory losing his grip on reality?
“The book is essentially a version of my own first decades as a college teacher in a liberal arts college in New England. The primary difference is that the protagonist, Greg Byrne, is an art historian, whereas my field is French literature and film,” said Lyons. “Looking back across the decades, it struck me that so many things that happened in that small college town with its many international connections – through study-abroad programs for students; research travel; visiting faculty – seemed implausible and almost inexplicable. Sometimes things were simply strange, sometimes they were funny, sometimes they were cruel.”
Where art has a deeper meaning than what we see, some may view this as similar to Dan Brown’s The Davinci Code.
“I can see that Dan Brown would come to mind, especially because the protagonist imagines or stumbles upon strange historical circumstances. But that is not the emphasis of this story.”
Lyons explains his approach and how he laid it out.
“The main character is a somewhat more paranoid version of my younger self. The story is light on plot, mostly concerned with historical moments, places in Vermont, Boston, Florence, Bucharest, and Cambridge, UK, atmosphere, and relationships,” he said. “The writing was surprisingly easy and enjoyable, especially given that all my previous books have been nonfiction.”
He said a sequel is not out of the question.
“I’m interested in a sequel, one that would not follow the main character of Arcadia, but rather some of his former students. The goal would be to bring the story up to the year 2000.”
Lyons will have copies of Arcadia for the library presentation, but they will not be for sale. Anyone who makes a $10 donation to Friends of the Library can have a copy.
