Books: Too Smart For Her Own Good?

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By Newsweek Editors

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Sometimes it helps to not be seen as being too smart. That's what British novelist Sarah Dunant learned with "The Birth of Venus" (Random House), the story of a 14-year-old girl's influential relationship with an artist in 15th-century Florence. Released in February in the United States, where she's almost entirely unknown, the book hit the tops of several best-seller lists and sparked a bidding war over the movie rights. But in Britain, where Dunant's best known as the highbrow arts pundit of BBC2's "The Late Show" from the early '90s, book sales were comparatively sluggish. Dunant blames her image. "People are slightly scared of clever women still, even after all this time," she laments.

Too bad. Dunant, who's written eight thrillers, shines in her foray into historical fiction. Her background as a mystery writer helps; the story's a page turner. (It opens with the examination of a deceased nun, revealing a scandalous tattoo of a snake that curls around her torso and ends at her groin.) But Dunant is at her best when she blends her brains with beauty, describing her heroine's fascination with the creative energy of Florence's Renaissance.

The book's U.S. success has Dunant's countrymen coming around. The paperback version has sold 80,000 copies in the United Kingdom within the last two months. Smart move.

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