Stephen and I picked up The Cloisters by Katy Hays for a buddy read! This was a great book to discuss and we both liked the world building, characters and setting. If you are interested in picking up a book set at a real museum, diving into tarot cards and the history of divination, check out the synopsis below and read on for my thoughts.
The Cloisters
By Katy Hays | Goodreads
When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination.
Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs.
A haunting and magical blend of genres, The Cloisters is a gripping debut that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
The Cloisters – Review
Growing up, I was fascinated by tarot cards. I had a deck that I loved keeping a secret. I did a reading once and never again. It was forgotten in my pile of memorabilia. The Cloisters reminded me of that deck and when I visited India, I made sure to bring back the deck with me. In the time apart, I hadn’t forgotten about Tarot: I became more interested in its art. My second art piece in Dan Fitzgerald/s book is inspired by the Death card.
The Cloisters is a slow-burn mystery novel, following a young girl right out of college. Ann grew up in the small town of Walla Walla and ever since the death of her father she has wanted to leave Walla Walla and start anew. She gets an internship at the famous Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York but is disheartened to learn on her arrival they no longer have a position for her. Fortunately, a researcher from The Cloisters happens to need someone at his museum to help with an upcoming exhibition and he convinces the Met to let him employ her.
Ann finds herself in a gothic building with pristine architecture and dark libraries and her dream of being a researcher seems to be coming true. She is immersed in research, surrounded by old texts and artifacts. She is a detective, looking through the past to present something in the present. I found the descriptions of the building and the places really well done! Even though the book is set in modern times, the feel is very historical fiction because of Tarot and the era Patrick, Ann and Rachel are trying to investigate in.
The Relationships
Over time, the story reveals how dear Ann’s father was to her. They shared a unique love for languages and he had worked diligently to pass on his knowledge to her. Though he wasn’t an academic, just a janitor at the college in their hometown, he would spend countless hours translating old texts he found in the professor’s trash. This helps Ann develop a love for languages and translation and the ability to translate without much context. I loved reading about these times she spent with her father. His last discovery from her mentor professor’s trash can is going to play a key role in the book and about halfway through, I am glad a translation is finally available.
Ann’s relationship, or lack of, with her mother added more dimensions to Ann. I hadn’t expected the book to go into grief and bereavement but it makes sense and I like how sad but real that situation is. For a young woman who is suffering from the loss of her father, supporting her mother too is a huge task, and it is not surprising to me that Ann avoids it.
The only way for Ann to grow was to confront her grief. Maybe it was intentional – to create a distance between her and her mother – but I felt that that should have been resolved at the end, especially in the last chapter where some time passed in broad strokes.
Ann’s friendship with Rachel is another aspect of the story. Rachel is rich with many academic contacts but as the book progresses, her family history and loss are also revealed. She has a certain relationship with Patrick, the researcher who hired Ann, and no matter how much he tries to convince her to do a tarot reading, she refuses to. Her aversion to readings due to her mother’s experience makes sense. It shows how inspite of our personal objections, sometimes for work, we just have to do what we have to do.
Another character in the book was Leo. He was an honest guy. I saw a true artist in him, surrounded by his passions. He was also street smart and willing to do all he had to make his dreams come true. I liked what he added to the story!
The Tarot Cards
I have never given much thought to the art of divination and when tarot emerged as a way of future telling. Learning about how it was used in Renaissance court and the reason people turn to the various practices of future telling is fascinating to me. As Ann interacted with the cards more in the second half of the book, I felt that the writing conveyed the beauty and magic of them. Ann was fascinated and really taken in by them. I enjoyed those descriptions and what her interpretation of the cards meant for the characters. What did the future have in store for them?
The second half of the book was really well done and I read it in one sitting. I enjoyed the atmosphere, the slow burn mystery of this story. Ann really grew on me as a character. She comes into her true self, shedding the awkwardness of a new graduate, who wants to look bigger than she is. She starts to believe that the cards are telling her something and she has a certain intuition for them. Patrick seems to see the same in her and exploits her openness to the power of divination.The story evolved into the events that actually happen and what Ann perceived of all of it. She eventually starts to piece together what she knows of Rachel, Leo and Patrick and come to her own conclusions.
Academia
The commentary on academia was hard to miss: the way some bright folks shine much brighter than others, how rejection weight down a person, the extent to which someone may have to go to establish themselves as someone, how far knowing someone gets you, how a woman knows that society will give the credit to the man even if her name is the one at very beginning. Rachel, Leo, Patrick and Ann all represented people stuck in different bad patterns of the academic world.
The academic and research intense side of the profession was highlighted beautifully by the symposium where Patrick was giving a lecture. That was a very immersive scene for me, and made the book even more interesting. It was like the first half had not fully depicted the glamorous world of curators and academics, and seeing how much they all cared about divination, I was infected by their passion, and appreciated the setting of The Cloisters.
If you are interested in The Cloisters, add it to your TBR on Goodreads. If you have read it already, tell me your thoughts in the comments or link to your review and I will give it a read. Check out Stephen’s thoughts and a part of our discussion on his blog.
Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a complimentary copy of this book for an honest review. It has been amazing to read it with a friend.
Be First to Comment