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The Last Mona Lisa: Your Ticket to Adventure

Bestselling author and fine artist, Jonathan Santlofer, has taken a real-life event – the 1911 theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Salon Carré in the Louvre Museum – and used it as the basis for The Last Mona Lisa. A People Magazine Best Book of the Summer, this utterly irresistible adventure focuses on Luke Perrone, an Italian-American artist in his late 30s. Perrone has long been obsessed with his great-grandfather, Vincenzo Peruggia – an Italian artist working at the gallery who removed the protective case and frame and stole La Giocanda, aka the Mona Lisa.There’s a lot to keep track of, but don’t worry about getting lost – Santlofer knows just when and where to switch from one story to the next, what to reveal, and when. His masterful storytelling skills keep the reader eagerly turning pages, tearing breathlessly from past to present, from Paris to Florence and back again. Along with … Read more

Publisher’s Weekly Review – The Last Mona Lisa

“The real-life theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre on Aug. 21, 1911, by workman Vincenzo Peruggia provides the backdrop for this outstanding caper from Nero Award winner Santlofer (Anatomy of Fear). In 2019, Luke Perrone, a nontenured university professor of art history and Vincenzo’s descendant, searches the Laurentian library in Florence, Italy, for his great-grandfather’s journal in the hope of determining whether the stolen Mona Lisa was replaced by a forgery before its recovery in 1913, and thus ensuring his academic position. John Washington Smith, an ambitious analyst from Interpol’s Art Theft Division, and the mysterious Alexandra Greene join Luke in his effort, and the trio are soon contending with nefarious scholars, forgers, stalkers, a Franciscan monk, and a Russian hit man as the bodies pile up. Details of Florence, Paris, and New York City enhance the twisty plot, as does the insider view of the underground world of art collectors … Read more

Kirkus Reviews – The Last Mona Lisa

      “Santlofer crafts a layered and absorbing art mystery, complete with exciting action scenes and beautiful descriptions of the city of Florence and its art as well as Paris and Nice. It’s the human story at the heart of it, though, that really elevates the novel.” Kirkus Reviews Read Here          

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Author Interviews: Jonathan Santlofer

 Five years ago, author and artist Jonathan Santlofer was at home with his wife, food writer Joy Santlofer, when Joy began feeling feverish. Joy, who had undergone outpatient surgery the day before for a torn meniscus in her knee, called her doctor’s office and was told to come for her scheduled appointment four days later. That appointment never happened. “It’s hard for me to say what exactly happened,” Santlofer says. “I had walked out of the room briefly to go into the back of our loft, to my studio, and when I came back, it was not that much later, but my wife was in incredible distress.” Joy died suddenly — possibly from medications interacting badly — and Santlofer was left in what he calls a “fugue state” of grief. Though he continued living in the loft that they had shared, he initially put away all of the photographs of his wife, because they … Read more

The New Yorker: Briefly Noted

“The Widower’s Notebook, by Jonathan Santlofer (Penguin). In this memoir, a novelist and artist contends with the sudden death of his wife. Santlofer adds new insights to the familiar genre of the grief memoir by exploring the ways in which men are expected to handle loss and sorrow. “ ‘Men do not write books about grief’ was something I heard a lot and even told myself,” he notes. Between tender recollections of his wife and attempts to return to a version of his routine, the author realizes that he has been culturally conditioned to divert his energy into pretending to be strong and moving on quickly, and he struggles to discuss his anguish openly, even with his daughter.” The New Yorker Briefly Noted READ HERE

Lit Hub: On Men and Grief: Dispatches from my Book Tour

A hand goes up from the back of the room. It is an unexpected full house in a southern bookstore where I have been invited to talk about my memoir, The Widower’s Notebook. The man, late middle age, salt and pepper hair, says, “My best buddy lost his wife a couple of months ago. I’ve been trying to get him out, inviting him to ballgames, drinks, dinner. Nothing works. Should I keep trying or leave him alone? I just… don’t… know.” His voice cracks on the last couple of words. I take a moment. I say, “Look, I’m no expert and I don’t know your friend, it may be too soon for him, but I’d say keep trying. Some of us push people away when what we really want is the opposite. Maybe men do that because we’re brought up with the idea that we’re supposed to tough things out, not ask for help, or … Read more

The Washington Post – Do men and women experience grief differently?

“Five years ago, Jonathan Santlofer’s wife, Joy, died unexpectedly following a routine outpatient procedure. In the days and months following her death, Santlofer kept a “widower’s notebook” — a collection of thoughts and drawings he polished and bound into a memoir of the same title. Reading Santlofer’s “The Widower’s Notebook” hit fairly close to home for me. I am also a widower. Heck, I even kept a “widower’s notebook” of my own for a while. “The Widower’s Notebook,” by Jonathan Santlofer (Penguin) Santlofer’s book is an affecting read and not entirely heavy, despite the subject matter. My wife, who died of cancer at 39, wrote a memoir, “The Bright Hour” about her own experiences with mortality, so I recognize the challenges of the dying-death-grieving genre. It is hard to present an untimely death without making it maudlin, or to convey the humor and absurdity of everyday life that persists even amid terminal illness and loss.” … Read more

The Sunday Times of London – In a Time of Grief, Turning to Art

Here’s an essay The Times and The Sunday Times of London, asked me to write about The Widower’s Notebook. Read the original article here. Friday, August 16, 2013 appeared to be a normal day. My wife, Joy, had undergone minor out-patient knee surgery — the routine repairing of a torn tendon — and was resting at home, her leg up, re-reading her notes for Food City, a book she had been writing for several years. What did we talk about? Dinner? Going away for the weekend? Our daughter? An ordinary day. I went out to buy more ice for Joy’s leg and she switched from research to reading Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. Earlier she had complained that her leg felt twitchy, and I thought she looked and felt a bit feverish. She called the doctor’s office and was told not to worry and to come in next week for her post-op appointment. “No one wants … Read more