The Van Gogh Deception

Content Warning: This novel references children in foster care and harm to children. It also references kidnapping. It plays into stereotypes by at times referring to a child in foster care as “lost.”

Art Hamilton is the 12-year-old protagonist who finds himself at the center of a multimillion-dollar art fraud. He begins the novel with no memory of who he is or how he ended up alone in the National Gallery of Art. Doctors diagnose him with dissociative amnesia brought on by a traumatic event. Art’s “shaggy blond hair and green eyes” is an early clue that helps readers connect his identity to Art Hamilton Sr., his father (21). At times shy, quiet, and uncertain, Art struggles to decipher whether these timid traits are really a part of his genuine personality or a consequence of his lost memory. Feeling “empty and unformed” (105), Art worries that his memories will never return, or if they do, that they will send him into shock. In the first half of the novel, Art represents vulnerability and the difficulties of coping with trauma as he navigates who to trust and how to feel secure. Even with the patience of his foster parent, Mary Sullivan, Art keeps his uncanny expertise in artwork a secret out of fear of worrying her, a decision that furthers his isolation.