Death on a Starry Night
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For many scholars—most perhaps—the conclusion that Vincent committed suicide remains unshakeable (Van Tilbrough and Meedendorp 462). Yet in the end, there is no way of knowing whether Vincent was alone at the time the gun was fired. Certainly there are enough questions surrounding the shooting to leave room for speculation.
For instance: suppose one of the boys Vincent befriended that summer was present, one for whom Vincent felt more sympathy than he did for René. And suppose that boy struggled with Vincent for the gun before it went off—struggled to prevent Vincent from shooting himself. Suppose it happened that way. If it did, a number of issues might be explained. Vincent’s decision to take the blame for the shooting would make perfect sense, and his equivocal statements to the police would be understandable. At the time of the shooting, the boy might have been posing for Vincent. We know, according to René, that Vincent made several paintings using the boys as models. In that case, the boy would have disposed of the gun, easel, and painting to protect himself, which would explain their disappearance. Of course, that is all supposition.
But it could be the stuff of fiction.
References
Boulon, Jean-Marc. Vincent Van Gogh à Saint-Paul-de-Mausole. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence: Association Valetudo, 2005.
Distel, Ann, and Susan Alyson Stein. Cézanne to Van Gogh: The Collection of Doctor Gachet. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999.
Doiteau, Victor. “Deux ‘copains’ de Van Gogh, inconnus: Les frères Gaston et René Secrétan; Vincent, tel qu’ils l’ont vu.” Aesculape 40 (1957): 38–62.
Gachet, Paul. Les 70 jours de van Gogh à Auvers. 1959. Auvers-sur-Oise: Valhermeil, 1994. In their Vanity Fair article (see below), Naifeh and Smith disparage Gachet’s reliability.
Naifeh, Steven, and Gregory White Smith. “NCIS: Provence: The Van Gogh Mystery.” Vanity Fair Dec. 2014.
———. Van Gogh: The Life. New York: Random House, 2011.
Rohan, Alain. Vincent van Gogh: Aurait-on retrouvé l’arme du suicide? Paris: Fargeau, 2012.
Van Tilbrough, Louis, and Teo Meedendorp. “The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh.” The Burlington Magazine 155.1324 (2013): 456–62.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Sebastian Testa, Maréchal des logis-chef of the National Gendarmerie of Vence, for information pertaining to criminal investigations in and around Saint-Paul-de-Vence; and to Heidi Marleau, associate director of the Ebling Library for the Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, for obtaining a copy of the Victor Doiteau article on Réne Secrétan, which we discuss in the afterword. Thanks again to our editor Raphael Kadushin for his encouragement and support and to all our friends at the University of Wisconsin Press who helped to produce this book, especially Sheila McMahon and Sheila Leary.
In addition to our debt to Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, the authors of Van Gogh: The Life, we drew upon the following works: Irving Stone, ed., Dear Theo: The Autobiography of Vincent van Gogh (1937; New York: Plume, 1995); Serita Stevens and Anne Bannon, How Dunit: A Book of Poisons (Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2007); and David Edmonds, Would You Kill the Fat Man: The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us about Right and Wrong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).
To our friends and family: We are grateful that you’ve stayed close in spite of our absences and failures to write, call, or visit when we were in the world of Nora and Toby. We thank you for your patience, and we look forward to every future moment we will share with you.
Books by Betsy Draine and Michael Hinden
A NORA BARNES AND TOBY SANDLER MYSTERY
Murder in Lascaux
The Body in Bodega Bay
Death on a Starry Night
A Castle in the Backyard: The Dream of a House in France
The Walnut Cookbook by Jean-Luc Toussaint (translators and editors)