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Clarissa Martinez, an Asian/Caucasian young woman has lived in seven different countries by the time she turns twenty and feels no lasting connection with any place. She thinks it's time to settle somewhere she could eventually call home. But where?
She decides to live in the city of her birth, There, she joins a quest for the provenance of stolen illuminated manuscripts, a medieval art form that languished with the fifteenth century invention of the printing press. For her, these ancient manuscripts elicit cherished memories of children's picture books her mother read to her, nourishing a passion for art. But can this quest give her that sense of belonging, that sense of home she craves?
The trail of the manuscripts leads to an American soldier who served in World War II. Clarissa wants to know what motivated him to steal and keep the artwork for fifty years. But instead of easy answers, she finds bigger questions. Immersed in art, but naive about life, she's disheartened and disillusioned by the machinations the quest reveals of an esoteric, sometimes unscrupulous art world. What compels individuals to steal artworks, and conquerors to plunder them from the vanquished? Why do collectors buy artworks for hundreds of millions of dollars? Who decides the value of an art piece and how?
The Golden Manuscripts: A Novel is inspired by the actual theft of medieval manuscript illuminations during the second world war.
