I became a fan of Christopher Moore when I read The Stupidest Angel, his scathing lampoon of the zombie jollity of the modern holiday season. In this latest novel, Moore has created an alternative universe for the Impressionists, and a hilarious meditation on the nature of the artist, the compulsion to create, and the power of inspiration.
On the surface this is a bawdy and epic tale of how aspiring painter Lucien Lessard and the notorious Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (immortalizer and immoralizer of Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge) team up to investigate the supposed suicide of their friend Vincent Van Gogh in 1890, and just why so many artists throughout history seem to end up debauched, diseased and dead, losing their lives in the pursuit of an elusive muse. Not for the faint of heart, Moore is a modern Rabelais, and his view of the human condition is ribald, risible --- and revealing.
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