Karen’s Pick
March, 2020
Metropolitan Stories
Christine Coulson
Published October 8th 2019
Other Press (NY)
Metropolitan Stories is a magical book about a magical place, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Christine Coulson writes with first hand knowledge of The Met since she began her career at the Met in 1991 as an intern and over the next 25 years worked in the Development Office, the Director’s Office, and the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. Although the book is classified as a novel, it reads more like a group of loosely connected short stories. For this reader, unlike other reviewers, the design of the oft times unrelated chapters does not lessen the strength of the novel as a whole.
The characters Coulson chooses to write about are museum employees depicted as being quirky, eccentric, emotional and passionate. In “Musing,” we meet The Met’s pretentious director Michel Larousse (think Philippe de Montebello?). Upon his learning that fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld is bringing his muse to a meeting, Larousse searches the museum’s collections of art objects in order to find his own personal muse to occupy his office for the visit. Coulson brilliantly anthropomorphizes the long list muse candidates vying for the job. “The Talent,” introduces us to the neurotic curator Nick Morton who obsesses about losing prime gallery space for an upcoming exhibition to a rival. Nick is adamantly states to all that will listen that, “My pictures cannot hang on nine-foot walls”.
Coulson’s writing of the art is represented as objects to be revered, prized, admired, and lovingly cared for by the 2,300 museum employees. In the chapter “Chair as Hero,” an 18th-century fauteuil à la reine in the Met’s Wrightsman Galleries recalls the master craver that lovingly created its coils and tendrils. The chair reveals to the reader the role it had in comforting the distraught young daughter of the Duchess of Parma, who eventually becomes the Queen of Spain. It is apparent that the fauteuil a la reine still longs to offer consolation. The reader is also introduced to “Adam,” a five hundred and six-year-old Renaissance marble statue who dreams about movement. Late one evening Adam gets his wish that produces catastrophic results.
Coulson skillfully does the job of taking us behind the scenes at the museum and making the Met come alive. Her writing allows the reader to go on a journey through the Met galleries, as well as the museums tunnels and secret passages, in which most visitors will never participate. The museum is seen as an ever-evolving place where the respect from the staff who care for its “inhabitants” translates into the awe-inspiring experiences had by millions of visitors. After reading Metropolitan Stories your time spent in to the Metropolitan Museum of Art will never be the same.