When Museums Are Fictionally Exhibited

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. (Photo: Google Arts & Culture.)

Museums are interesting places, educational places, entertaining places, sometimes mysterious places, and sometimes intimidating places, so why not include them in some fiction?

I just read Metropolitan Stories, a group-of-short-tales-as-novel set in New York City’s renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among the intriguing wrinkles in Christine Coulson’s 2019 book are the presence of some ghosts and the fact that paintings and sculpture in the Met’s massive collection can experience emotions, have memories, etc. There’s even a chapter that would have worked as a Twilight Zone episode. But Coulson also focuses on various flesh-and-blood museum staffers — some rather eccentric.

Also set at the Met is The Goldfinch, at least in the first part of Donna Tartt’s novel — when a tragic gallery bombing gets the sprawling, dynamic plot rolling. The 2013 book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

The American Museum of Natural History in NYC is the setting for The Night at the Museum. While I haven’t read Milan Trenc’s 1993 children’s book, I did see the popular 2006 movie version in which we got to visualize the museum’s exhibits come to life after sunset. I think some of us have fantasized about that. 🙂

Getting out of NYC, among the Chicago locations where the two protagonists in Audrey Niffenegger’s 2003 novel The Time Traveler’s Wife find themselves are the Art Institute and the Field Museum. Being in places like that can telegraph things like a character’s education level and cultural awareness.

But not always. The working-class members of the wedding party in Emile Zola’s 1877 novel The Drinking Den feel out of place when they roam The Louvre in Paris, though of course there are plenty of working-class people who are avid museum-goers.

The Louvre is more prominent in Dan Brown’s 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code; for instance, that museum is where a certain curator (who’s also a leader of a secret society) meets his fate.

I know there are various other novels with at least partial museum settings. Any you’d like to name? Any thoughts on this topic?

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Misty says Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for my book features a talking cat: 🙂

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about restaurants and other places no longer in my town, and the sad demise of a 250-year-old tree after a recent storm — is here.

77 thoughts on “When Museums Are Fictionally Exhibited”

  3. Just finished Equal Danger (1971), a novel of crime/suspense by the Italian political philosopher Leonardo Sciascia. An excellent piece of pithy pointings to a few likely destinations of murderous responsibility to be found in the malevolent political scene of a fictional country like–yet not– 1960’s Italy. At the novel’s denouement, its detective protagonist and the head of a revolutionary party meet in The National Gallery, “because each of them… enjoyed looking at certain paintings again and again.” The encounter did nothing good for either.

    Two of My Favorites Meet:

    The post-Louis XVI Louvre, as a repository of art removed from its original locations and owners by a victorious Napoleon, was, shortly before his Empire’s end, the responsibility of one Stendhal, who was charged with cataloguing the spoils. It was while tending to this duty that he had occasion to meet the tourist, art lover and essayist William Hazlitt, who was also, inconvenient to his reputation in England, an outspoken admirer of Napoleon.

    No small part of his admiration centered on that dubiously assembled collection of art, for the first time made available to the gaze of ordinary people, but previously hidden away in noble and royal houses throughout those parts of Europe that came, for a time, under the Emperor’s control.

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    • Thank you, jhNY, for the mention of “Equal Danger”! The title alone piques one’s interest, and that climactic scene sounds memorable.

      I didn’t know Stendhal had that Louvre job. Fascinating what some authors did in their lives besides authoring! And, yes, museums are democratizing to some extent, allowing people to experience certain paintings, objects, and other things without having to be very rich.

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  4. Howdy, Dave!

    — I know there are various other novels with at least partial museum settings. Any you’d like to name? —

    If one accepts the (Ezra) Poundian proposition that all ages are contemporaneous in the mind, then I would like to name E.L. (Elmore Leonard?) Doctorow’s Ragtime, which famously features the initial incarnation of the super structure known as the Morgan Library & Museum on Mad Ave in The Town So Nice They Named It Twice. As any local culture vulture worth his or her carrion could tell you, the mostly white-marbled building in Murray Hill is marking its first century as a public institution in 2024. In its years as a private institution, however, it was a place for some of the moneyed John Pierpont Morgan’s stuff, such as historical, illuminated and literary manuscripts; early printed books; and drawings and prints by a few of the Old Masters. It was in this guise that Doctorow employed the edifice as the setting for the climactic moment in what I consider his best novel, but I have not read all of them yet, so facts could force me to change my opinion.

    Back in the late 1980s, I frequently passed by the Morgan Library at lunchtime while walking between my nearby office and good old Baby Bo’s Burritos. And, every time, I imagined I could hear the bullets whizzing by, evidence of the memorability of Doctorow’s denouement in most cases and a beef between crack dealers in only a couple. (Did I mention this was in the late 1980s?)

    J.P., I Mean, J.J. McGrath (Alias MugRuith1)

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    • Thank you, J.J., for that interesting and delightful comment! I’ve read three E.L. Doctorow novels, and the excellent “Ragtime” is definitely my favorite. (Read it so long ago that I forgot that I could have included it in this week’s blog post. 🙂 )

      “As any local culture vulture worth his or her carrion could tell you…” — great line! And nice 100th-anniversary reference.

      Re your last paragraph: One indeed knows a novel is memorable when something we walk past makes a person think about it.

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  5. Hi Dave, a fabulous post as always. I have not read A Night at the Museum, but I have seen the movie (s – I think there was more than one). I can add The Museum of Ordinary People by Mike Gayle which I enjoyed very much. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig could also fit in here in a way and that was also a great book.

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  6. Here’s a good one – a debut novel back from 1995 (and then many more after). It’s called Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson. It is about the young girl who goes to school and who looks around the York Castle Museum – that being York in the UK. Kate Atkinson came from York, as I did for several years too. We both went to the same school and almost the same time. We wore the school clothes including the skirt –gored, flared or pleats but NOT STRAIGHT – and this was totally lifted from her book – I will always remember that bit.

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  7. Gee, I can’t think of 1 book.

    I have however, seen the movie The Night at the Museum. I had no idea it was based on a book.

    Did you know there’s an Anne of Green Gables Museum?

    It’s the home of LMM’s aunt and uncle where she spent a lot of time. https://www.annemuseum.com/index.php

    For some reason Joy’s book Still life popped into my mind.

    In an avant-garde way of thinking, the heroine’s body is the museum/gallery where-in the story takes place.

    Just trying to participate! 🙄

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  8. OOh, just getting round to catching up Dave. Great post but then I just love museums. and one I am very fond of is York Castle Museum, cos the first I saw it I thought was utterly amazing in terms of how to recreate the past. Growing up I had a huge fondness for our own now called the McManus Galleries, cos they had and still do have a wee ‘room’ that was like my Nannie’s house. So obvi I am going to name Kate Atkinson’s book Behind the Scenes at the Museum because in addition to thporoughly enjoying that book, the musues is the Castle museum. .

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  9. I just finished a novel by Jonathan Santlofer entitled, “The Last Mona Lisa,” As you know I have been researching the history of the Mona Lisa, so when this book popped up, seemingly our of nowhere, it was serendipitous. It was a delightful mystery and involved going to the Louvre. Jonathan Santlofer weaves a tale that blends art, mystery, and history. Set against the backdrop of the Mona Lisa, the story unfolds as an art historian uncovers secrets that could change the world of art forever. As you know, I am mostly a nonfiction reader so I am not familiar with many of the fiction writers. I did a little research into Jonathan Santlofer. This is what I found out: Jonathan Santlofer, a prolific author, has penned five notable novels: The Death Artist, Color Blind, The Killing Art, The Murder Notebook, and Anatomy of Fear. His literary prowess was recognized with the prestigious Nero Wolfe Award for best crime novel in 2009 for Anatomy of Fear. The Death Artist, his debut novel, not only became an international bestseller but also gained widespread acclaim, being translated into 22 languages, showcasing his ability to resonate with a global audience. What I notice is the common theme in all of his books is art.

    “We lose the things we do not cherish enough, his one thought, his only thought, as he slips into his workman’s tunic, buttons it over his street clothes, and opens the closet door.” Jonathan Santlofer, The Last Mona Lisa

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  11. I can’t think of any I’ve read, but there’s one I’d really love to read “All The Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr in which a little girl lives next door to the Museum Of Natural History in Paris where her father is a locksmith. She’s been blind since the age of 6. Set during WWII. I think there is a movie about it yet I’m holding off watching it until then. Any reviews or opinions are most welcome. Susi

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    • Thank you, Susi! When I was researching this post, I saw that “All The Light We Cannot See” has a museum element. But I haven’t read it, so I didn’t want to mention it. Glad you did! 🙂 It certainly is a very well-regarded book. I’m putting it on my list, too!

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  12. Dave, the only novel that comes to mind is “The Da Vinci Code.” Based on the film version version of three of the novels you’ve mentioned, I would say that the museum offers an excellent setting for all types of intriguing stories. Your fascinating topic also brings to mind a documentary I watched about Boston’s Greatest Unsolved Mystery: The Gardner Museum Art Heist on March 18, 1990.

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    • Thank you, Rosaliene! “The Da Vinci Code” definitely had quite a museum motif (among other things). And I appreciate you mentioning The Gardner Museum Art Heist; I had vaguely remembered it, but just looked it up to get more info. A very major crime.

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  13. An interesting subject, Dave. The only instance I can think of at present is in George Gissing’s ‘The Nether World,’ in which Bob Hewett–a working-class man enbarking on a life of crime as a forger–runs into Clem Peckover, with whom he was intimate some years ago, outside the British Museum. Both are now married to other people, but they’re looking to resurrect their old relationship. Bob takes Clem into the museum to prolong their meeting, and proves surprisingly knowledgeable about the exhibits, we’re told. It’s all wasted on Clem, who’s intellectually-challenged. Gissing makes a point of suggesting that, had the museum been open outside of working hours, both Bob and others of his class might have benefitted thereby. 🙂

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  14. Great post, Dave. I think a museum is a great setting for a book. There is so much content in most museums that a story could go almost anywhere. One book which almost does go almost everywhere is The Smithsonian Institution by Gore Vidal.

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