Customer Reviews

All Will Be Revealed

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A photographer who refuses to see people as anything more than the raw material for pictures. A spirit medium who has come to doubt the reality of her conversations with the dead. A deceased polar explorer who cannot quite bring himself to regret the journey that killed him. A disappointed lover who trains a performing bear to read minds. These are the characters that people the novel All Will Be Revealed.

Set in New York City at the close of the 19th century, this wonderful novel explores the hidden connections between three Gilded Age obsessions: pornography, Spiritualism and Arctic exploration. In doing so, it threads its way among a series of dualities: spirit and flesh, imagination and reality, the human need for connection and the fear of losing oneself in the other. It is funny, sad, brilliant, and very beautiful, and I loved it more than anything I've read in years. If you buy just one book, it should be this one.

All Will Be Revealed is a wonderful and unique novel that belongs in the same literary realm of Carson McCullers, Edith Wharton, and Flannery O'Connor. With the intuitive power of McCullers, the elegance of Wharton, and the strangeness of O'Connor, Siegel explores the ways his characters--Augustus Auerbach, Verena Swann and Theodore Swann--use pornography, spirit mediums and polar exploration as projections for their inability to truly love or mourn loss of ones they have loved. Entertaining, deeply felt, and beautifully written, All Will Be Revealed explores the ways people are afraid to reveal themselves to each other--and how they overcome these fears. It is a book wholly unique and immensely memorable; you will love it and recommend it to your friends. Bravo!

Excellent read. Kept me up reading until my eyes blurred. Loved the ending. Thoroughly interesting characters.

On the surface, Robert Anthony Siegel's second book has very little in common with his first. The first was a combination of a character study, a coming-of-age novel, and a legal thriller, set in the modern day. The second is a historical novel, set in New York City at the end of the nineteenth century, with larger-than-life characters and exotic backdrops of pornography and spiritualism. Look beneath the surface, though, and the books begin to reveal similarities. Both are comments on the American dream; both are character-driven pieces that turn the screw in terms of plot until they also function as thrillers; both reveal an author who shows little concern for fitting into pre-determined commercial niches, who instead bravely follows his muse.
I liked this book even better than the first one. These deeply flawed characters -- a self-deluding pornographer and a guilt-ridden sham psychic -- are portrayed with compassion but never with condescension. Even the villain of the piece is shown affection and sympathy. The entire undertaking has an air of mystery which is sadly lacking in much of today's writing -- the mystery of seances, of photography, of magic. Even more importantly, Siegel explores the mysteries of love and loneliness and life. Highly recommended.

Wheelchair-bound Augustus Auerbach, his shriveled legs hidden by a warm rug, has hidden from the world in a cocoon of prosperity. A pornographer, Auerbach has amassed a fortune from his art, an impressive, artifact-filled estate the site of his photography studio, where naked models pose for images purchased by a willing audience. From the perspective of perfect control, Auerbach is shielded from emotional infringement, strict routine a substitute for intimacy. That is, until one of his models cajoles Augustus into attending a séance given by one of New York City's leading spiritualists, Verena Swann. The widow of an explorer, Mrs. Swann purports to have daily communication with her husband, Theodore: "Verena Swann loved her husband so much that she would not abandon him, even in death". Her brother-in-law, Leopold, an accomplished con man, sets the stage for the adept's spiritual diversions.

Like many charlatans in the waning years of the nineteenth century, Verena Swann makes her living from the desperation of those who have been swept away by vague promises of sightings, reuniting loved ones with their dead for a fee. Mrs. Swann realizes that her life is built on pretension, but like many females of the era, has always relied on men for guidance. Unexpectedly attracted to the handsome Auerbach, Verena begins a mild flirtation, but is suddenly whisked away by Leopold, who senses he is losing control over a woman essential to the success of his career. To that end, Verena is delivered into the care of an intimidating Dr. Mayhew, incarcerated in his sanatorium, where terrible operations are conducted on females considered out of control. Sending a surreptitious letter to Augustus via her attendant, Mrs. Swann is precipitously delivered from her fate.

Contrasting the lives of the three characters, Auerbach, Verena and Leopold, the author couches each in the histrionics of Victorian excess, replete with the bizarre tastes and curiosities of the era, New York seething with entrepreneurs and cons of every ilk. Augustus is drawn from the long isolation of his life, thrust into an unfamiliar relationship with a woman who opens him like a flower too long deprived of light: "His first intimation that he had lived a life of loneliness was that he did not feel lonely anymore." For her part, Mrs. Swann is secure once more in the arms of a man who adores her, as delicate in her way as is the object of her affections. It is only poor Leopold who fails to profit from the recent upheaval, withdrawing, as once did Augustus, into a world without risk. This charming, elegantly wrought story is a step into the past, where spirits rap on tables and beg for release, where lonely men purchase obscene pictures to view in the privacy of their illusions. Luan Gaines/ 2007.

This book arrived promptly, in good condition and I took it with me on my week long vacation. I finished it because it was written quite well, kind of mysterious novel and held my interest. I recommend it.

Well-crafted and fascinating, I could not put this book down. Siegel's story is unique and the characters and story line drew me in.

Robert Anthony Siegel has created a mesmerizing and epic story out of three seemingly disparate but equally fascinating threads: spiritualism, arctic exploration, and Victorian-era pornography. He weaves these threads together with characters that are strikingly original and absolutely human. I felt that I had stepped into a completely different era, and I loved every minute of it. This novel marks a terrific literary accomplishment. I look forward to reading what Siegel writes next.

At the turn of the century in New York, Augustus thinks that he is a man of importance in the same vein as Carnegie or Vanderbilt. The problem is his self importance is in the field of erotic photography. In comes the pseudo psychic; but the part that made me want to wall bang this book was the "psychic bear". Quite a forgettable book.