The Swan Thieves is many things.

It is a story of a painter who becomes an icon for many different men through the years, including her husband, her father-in-law, her husband's uncle, her collector and her daughter's companion. Robert Oliver and Oliver's psychiatrist, Andrew Marlow, are just two of the men who seek the woman under the oil.

It is a study of the multi-layered nature of existence, or in the words of Robert Oliver, "Have you ever had this feeling that the lives people lived in the past are still real...that person really lived?" People who are no longer with us are locked in time, based on our memories of them. For example, had she lived, Marilyn Monroe would now be nearing 85 and would probably be well past the blonde bombshell image of the 1950s (although Cher makes me question the blanket validity of that statement). Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights puts it to us irreverently: "I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I am saying grace ... when you say grace, you can say it to Grown-up Jesus or Teenage Jesus or Bearded Jesus or whoever you want."

It is a reflection on the May-December relationship in all of its incarnations: a romantic interlude between an elderly man and young woman, filial respect between a middle-age man and his mother, the companionship between an older woman and a young gay man, the obsession of painter for his muse. There were two very lovely chapters in the middle of the book that are the turning point in the story when Marlow visits his aging father. They pay respects at his mother's grave, have a chat about Olivier's case, and the fact that Marlow is in love. The book really dragged and the characters were awkward up until that point, but suddenly the people became alive and their actions were interesting.

By the end of the book, events transform Robert Oliver to an enraged and violent man. Obviously he cared enough to avenge a great wrong. The thing I never found out, the thing I still don't know, is what is it that loaded the gun? Why she was so important to him?  Yes, he loved her, but WHY?

If you enjoyed The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry or A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar you will remember The Swan Thieves long after you turn the final page.