Venus, Vanishing
A Novel

Quotes

“[A] magnificent debut. . . . A hard-hitting portrait of the challenges faced by Jewish and queer artists amid the rise of fascism in interwar Germany.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“As an art historian and curator, Birrell has drawn Hannah and her world with careful details and research. . . . Historical fiction that will entertain those interested in art, women’s history, and prewar Berlin.”
—Library Journal

“Venus, Vanishing is a gripping, intimate exploration of a young woman artist coming of age in pre-war Berlin. Rebecca Birrell re-creates this lost world beautifully, building up its layers as carefully as a painter: its nightclub dancers and nosy landladies, its bold activists and ambitious politicians. Her protagonist, Hannah, finds in art a space to explore her desires, but in 1930s Germany, that seductive space is becoming increasingly dangerous. Art can both reveal and conceal secrets—and the tangled relationship between artist and muse can have lethal consequences. This is a richly textured, gorgeously written debut that I couldn’t put down.”
—Joanna Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Whalebone Theatre

“This vivid novel of 1930s Berlin explores the tangled relationship between patronage, authorship, and self-expression, asking what it means to make art in an emergency. A skillful and loving restoration of Jewish art and women’s lives, of women’s art and Jewish lives, of art, in other words, and life.”
—Eleanor Catton, author of international bestselling Birnam Wood and Booker Prize-winner The Luminaries

“I absolutely LOVED Venus, Vanishing. A wonderful novel. Birrell’s prose is sharp and deft, yet alive with a deep, resonant tenderness. I loved the way she attends to the textures of material life—undergarments, fabrics, measuring tapes, mirrors, stitches granted the same luminosity as great works of art. Venus, Vanishing is a novel that sees with extraordinary clarity.”
—Elizabeth O'Connor, author of Whale Fall

“A rare and precious combination of emotional warmth and cleverness.”
—Sarah Moss, author of Ripeness and Ghost Wall

“This extraordinary book holds a whole world, both deeply researched and deeply felt, brought to vivid life before our eyes. Rebecca Birrell writes her way into each scene so piercingly, steering readers through heart-quickening moments of peril and courage, of desire and risk. This is the rare sort of book that brings the past back to trembling life and alerts the reader to the shadows it casts in our present moment. Venus, Vanishing moved me deeply; I didn't want it to end.”
–Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat

“It is rare for a novel to hold so much beauty and life alongside such destruction, loss and pain, and even rarer for none of these to diminish the force of the other. This book offers us a vision of art against evil, of the endurance of love, ambition and vitality amidst the worst of atrocities and betrayal. Rebecca Birrell’s writing offers us a world to live in and to hope from, a new counter-narrative of survival and renewal. This is a radiant, bold, exquisite novel—inspiring, moving and ultimately consoling.”
—Megan Hunter, author of Days of Light

“A page-turner that crackles with menace and humanity; Birrell deftly balances depth and pace in this unusual, deeply satisfying novel. Hannah is so vividly drawn that I expected to look up from the page and find her sewing or sketching at my side.”
—Bea Setton, author of Berlin

“Venus, Vanishing floored me. It was utterly captivating, from first to last.”
—Lauren Elkin, author of Art Monsters and Scaffolding

“Birrell’s deep understanding of artists and their work is evident here. Both Hannah’s inner thoughts and her conversations with others are filled with imaginative and insightful observations. . . . An arresting narrator, Hannah sees the rest of the world through the eyes of an artist.”
—The Guardian

“Art historian Rebecca Birrell’s debut novel is a gripping read which asks big questions on the meaning and value of art, particularly in times of great tragedy. But it does so as part of an engrossing, vital tale of love, friendship and betrayal which is bursting with humanity.”
—Irish News

“There’s a somber gorgeousness to Birrell’s smart, sensuous debut. Meticulously researched, this vital, luminous novel slowly edges into danger and destruction from its opening in 1927 Berlin.”
—Daily Mail

“A deeply felt, richly detailed debut.”
—Chloe Ashby, The Art Newspaper

“Birrell, a curator and art historian, carefully paints a decade in Hannah’s life, following her from Germany to Paris and eventually to England. As well as a story of queer desire and artistic coming of age, Venus, Vanishing portrays a creative existence crushed by history. . . . Hannah’s narration contains flashes of unexpected, silky description. . . . Birrell has turned her attention to young Jewish life and resistance, which ‘deserved attention and tenderness despite its ordinariness.’ Here are stockings draped on the floor, sketchbooks, swims in a lake and postcards scribbled with cryptic notes of love.”
—Literary Review