The Swan Thieves (2010) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

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• Robert Oliver: A talented painter arrested for trying to stab a painting hanging in the National Museum of Art in Washington DC. He is institutionalized and refuses to speak to anyone about his reasons for attacking the painting.
• Henri Robinson: Art critic and collector who was Arde de Clerval's (Beatrice's daughter) lover until she died. He is the owner of Beatrice's greatest painting, The Swan Thieves and a collection of letters between Beatrice and Olivier Vignot.
• Yves de Clerval: Beatrice's husband
• Cyril Marlow: Dr. Andrew Marlow's father
• Mary Bertison: Robert's lover and fellow painter.
• Olivier Vignot: An alleged uncle in 1870's France who corresponds with Beatrice, both who are painters.
• Arnold Liddle: Robert's colleague at Greenhill College's Dept of Art
• Beatrice de Clerval: Add a description of this character.
• Kate Oliver: Robert's estranged wife.
• Andrew Marlow: Psychiatrist who receives Robert Oliver at the private psychiatric residential center, Goldengrove, where he has been employed for twelve years.
• John Garcia: Psychiatrist for one of Washington's biggest hospital who first encounters Robert Oliver.

Quotes edit see section history

• “We don't know exactly when we get stuck, or lose energy to work for change, but we do.”

  Marlow

• “But later, when she sits alone on her sunporch, trying to make everything simple, the kiss returns, fills the air around her. It floods the high windows, the carpet, the folds of her dress, the pages of her book. 'Please understand that I respect and love you.' She cannot make the kiss disappear. By the next morning she no longer wants it to. She means no harm-- she will do no harm-- but she wants to keep that moment with her as long as she can.”

  Beatrice

• “Doesn't every love express itself this way, with the seeds of both its flowering and its ruin in the very first words, the first breath, the first thought?”

  Mary

• “She is one in a line of loves, but she is the only one at this momnt, and she will be the last. The unforgettable, the one he takes with him to the end.”

  Beatrice

• “And I felt that familiar pleasure of being someone's grown child.”

  Dr. Marlow

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• It was not illness to let another person—or a belief, or a place—take over your heart. But if you gave away your mind to one of those things, relinquished your ability to make decisions, it would, in the end, render you sick—that is, if your doing that wasn’t already a sign of your condition.

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• “I told him that we couldn’t be sure of anything except the power of love,” he said, “and that he was under no requirement to believe in a particular source of that love, as long as he could keep giving and receiving some in his own life.”

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• People whose marriages haven’t collapsed, or whose spouses die instead of leaving, don’t know that marriages that end seldom have a single ending. Marriages are like certain books, a story where you turn the last page and you think it’s over, and then there’s an epilogue, and after that you’re inclined to go on wondering about the characters or imagining that their lives continue without you, dear reader. Until you forget most of that book, you’re stuck puzzling over what happened to them after you closed it.

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• ‘But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, / All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.’ ”

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• “The problem is simply finding the right person. Ask Plato. Just make sure she finishes your thoughts and you finish hers. That’s all you need.”

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• In those days, I still thoroughly enjoyed the romance I called “by myself”; I didn’t know yet how it gets lonely, picks up a sharp edge later on that ruins a day now and then—ruins more than that, if you’re not careful.

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• Doesn’t every love express itself this way, with the seeds of both its flowering and its ruin in the very first words, the first breath, the first thought?

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• “Faith is simply whatever is real to us,” he always told me in response, and then he’d quote Saint Augustine or a Sufi mystic and slice a pear for me, or set up the chessboard.

  Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers

• numinously painted against the reality of that grass; it was too pale, translucent, like the sprout of a plant that has grown under a log. I thought at once of Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, although the figure of Leda was full of struggle, startled and epic—not calmly

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• We are never really alert to our destinies, are we? That’s how my father would put it, in his study in Connecticut.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Washington, D.C.: Site of the National Museum of Art where Robert Oliver's crime was committed.
• Acapulco
• Paris, France
• Goldengrove: A private psychiatric residential facility located near Washington, D.C.
• Brooklyn
• New York City: Where Robert first met Kate
• Greenhill, North Carolina: Site of Robert's home and work (Greenhill College).

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Swan: Symbolic of Robert and Beatrice. Beatrice was beautifully creative, so was Robert. But the both had their creativity/minds stolen - thus the tite: Swan Thieves.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Elizabeth Kostova (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3611.O74927 S93
• Dewey: 813.6

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Mystery & Thrillers › Thrillers › Psychological & Suspense
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Official Website