The Forger’s Daughter

Bradford Morrow\’s The Forger\’s Daughter, the sequel to his 2014 The Forgers, brings us back to the world of rare books, antiquarian searchers and searches, collections and collectors: the inward-looking and often obsessive world of bibliophiles. It brings us back to the dark fellowship of forgery which can mean, in extremis, illusion, greed, betrayal. And murder. The novel\’s narrator, Will (surname-less again) has left behind, he assures us, his troubled and bloody past. Twenty years since the murder of Adam Diehl, fellow forger and his then-girlfriend\’s (and eventual wife\’s) brother, and the horrific mutilation of Will\’s right hand by another fellow forger and nemesis Henry Slader, he seems to have abandoned the forgery and fury of his old life. Will has owned up to his transgressions (most of them, anyway), made restitution for his fraudulent conduct, and established an unquestioned expertise regarding books and all things bookish. He\’s relied upon to find forgeries (even his own) as they pop up like Champagne corks in the vast salty sea of books. He has settled into an admirable domesticity in lower Manhattan with his wife and two daughters. What could go wrong? If the answer is Henry Slader\’s reappearance after twenty years, as dark hearted as ever, into Will\’s serene life (and it is,) quite a lot can go wrong, actually. Forgery is both a crime and a craft, and Morrrow, with his talent for the telling detail, guides us in our understanding about just how difficult it is to create a document or a signature that will convince an \”expert\” of its originality. Once a forger, always a forger, Will tells us, ruefully but with a touch of pride, and that is an opinion and a passion that Slader well understands. Slader knows something, a devastating secret about Will and his bloody past that Will is desperate to keep hidden. Slader forces him back into forgery–a world-class forgery at that–using the leverage of revelations that would destroy Will\’s life. Will\’s task? Audacious to say the least, to create a \”copy/perfect facsimile\” of the \”black tulip\” of American literature, the rarest of the rare, the anonymous first publication of E. A. Poe\’s \”Tamarlane and Other Poems.\” Twelve copies are known to exist (one stolen and subsequently disappeared) mostly located in distinguished libraries; only two copies are in private collections. Will is forced to create the \”thirteenth\” copy of a \”book\” poorly printed in 1827. The \”Tamerlane\” of 1827 is flawed by errors both typographical and technical. The printer was very young, and Poe as always was very poor and anonymous. Flaws were inevitable and, in the dialectic of rare things, have helped make the book immensely valuable. In order to free himself from Slader and his shadow confederate, Will has to meticulously replicate these \”flaws.\” Here Morrow provides useful but not overbearing information about paper, ink, and the intricacies of letterpresses. A difficult business. And failure, as they say is not an option. He is desperate–he also feels, to be truthful, a bit of the old forger\’s passion stir, the bibliophile\’s libido–and in his desperation, includes his daughter Nicole, the forger\’s daughter, in the effort. She is–genetically or by some other sort of magic–well suited to the task, a kind of forgery savant. She assists him with a singular determination. Helps him happily, with a devotion more than filial. They create a brilliantly executed copy of \”Tamerlane.\” But a copy– perfect facsimile–is not a forgery; a forgery requires another step, Morrow reminds us, the willingness to represent these few mostly worthless pieces of paper as an orphaned original, the blackest of the tulips. When the new \”Tamerlane\” does appear, as a great surprise to Will and his wife, the trap snaps shut. Will is a forger again. Once a forger… The Forger\’s Daughter is an enjoyable and entertaining read on many levels. Morrow\’s reputation as an extraordinary stylist does not disappoint here. He also cleverly alternates the narration between Will and Meghan, husband and wife. Will tells us his version of events, that emotions and anxieties that are his nightmare; and his wife relates her story–more austere, frightened\’ and fraught–and somehow more reliable. Interestingly, they both withhold vital information from each other as the story unfolds, potentially life-changing information, suggesting their happiness may be itself an illusion, a \”forgery\” neither wishes to expose. In creating these two very distinct voices–the systole and diastole–of a loving but complex relationship , Morrow reveals his story-telling mastery. And he has given us Nicole, the nascent mistress of the forger\’s dark arts. My sense is that we have seen neither the last of Will, nor the last of his extraordinary daughter. Another of the pleasures of this novel is Morrow\’s evocation of Will\’s \”kingdom by the sea,\” his Lower Manhattan neighborhood and his sanctuary. It is very small indeed, geographically, a few dozen blocks, bounded in my reckoning by Tompkins Square to the east, Washington Square to the south, Union Square to the north, and Fifth Avenue to the west. It is a geography of contentment with its shops and restaurants, bars and bookstores, theaters and green spaces: it represents the small graces of urban life. It is a lovely place in the recollection and Morrow\’s description of its energy and civility (and anxieties and sorrows, to be sure) is spot on. Morrow evoked the sounds and structure, the light and the smell of the place not knowing, of course, how threatened it would become by the disaster of global pandemic. Well done. One hopes it\’s not an elegy.

This much-heralded novel is a sequel to a previous novel, THE FORGERS, but I will review it as a freestanding entity. Will (we never learn his last name) is a \’retired\’ forger with a significant past. A rival named Henry Slader has attacked him with a cleaver and mutilated his right hand. (Fortunately, Will is a southpaw.) Will, his wife Meghan, daughter Nicole and adopted daughter Maisie are New Yorkers, with an apartment in the East Village and an old farmhouse in the Hudson Valley, 100 miles above the city. Will and Meghan are bibliophiles and analytic bibliographers with consultancies, a bookstore in NYC and, as noted above, a shadowy past in the world of book and autograph forgery. Slader comes back into their lives with a threat/proposition. He claims to have evidence that Will murdered Meghan\’s brother and forces him to forge the rarest book in American literature, an early set of poems by Poe. Nicole aids her father in this process. Will and Meghan have formerly lived in Ireland and they return there in the course of the novel. Thus we have three separate settings, all nicely realized. We also receive a great deal of information on the construction and printing of books, something which doubtless warmed the hearts of critics and cozy readers. The book is not, however, a cozy. It is much more like a Poe tale, with Slader passing in and out of scenes, walls and woods like a ghost or wraith-like creature. Will is haunted by fear and lacks spiritual/religious comforts. This is all very Poe-like and appropriately so, if that is your cup of tea. The book contains elements of horror and the supernatural, despite its quite realistic settings. At points the writing is a bit lush, bordering on purple, but the characters (except for Slader—about whom we learn nothing except for his knowledge of books and his capacity for evil) are interesting and well-wrought. The plot is complex and at some points vague, since Slader is the principal motivator of the plot and his intentions are never really made clear. Some have complained about the ending, though I found it relatively satisfying. The book is unique, given the level of its bibliographic information, and a good read. It will appeal to multiple audiences—fans of Poe, cozy readers, crime fiction readers, bibliophiles and displaced New Yorkers.

I’m a book binder by hobby and I loved all the book related intrigue!

After reading The Forgers, I was excited to get to The Forger\’s Daughter … was not disappointed! Having grown up near where Daughter takes place, I loved the meticulous attention to detail about the characteristics of Upstate New York. It is almost a character unto itself. The dark, winding roads, the deep history. So beautifully and vividly captured. Mr. Morrow has crafted a wonderfully complex story of murder, deception, and a stark look at the dark side of the literary world. Looking forward to the next Morrow …

Masterfully written. Enjoyed the plot.

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