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WORK TITLE: A Head in Cambodia
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 3/16/1948
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.ohioswallow.com/book/A+Head+in+Cambodia
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born March 16, 1948.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, art historian, curator, scholar, consutlant, and Asian art expert. Independent art historian, consultant, and museum curator.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Nancy Tingley is a noted art historian and consultant with a specialty in Asian art. She has had a lengthy career in the art community, both as a scholar and as a museum curator.
Tingley was among the first art historians and scholars to study Vietnamese art and to identify Vietnam as a country that possessed “great treasures of ancient art and architecture,” commented Frances FitzGerald, writing in the New Yorker. The Vietnam war was largely responsible; most saw the country as the location of a long and bitter conflict, not as a storehouse of ancient artwork. Diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the United States also made any study of Vietnamese art difficult if not impossible. However, Tingley was determined to pursue this scholarly course. She “Tingley first went to Vietnam in 1988, thirteen years after the Vietnam War ended and seven years before the normalization of U.S.-Vietnamese relations,” FitzGerald She and her colleagues had friendly relations with the Ministry of Culture, but American resentments and Vietnamese rules prohibiting even the temporary export of objects more than a century old interfered with plans for an American exhibition. With persistence and regular visits, however, Tingley was finally able to put on an exhibition of Vietnamese art in 2010.
Arts of Ancient Viet Nam
In Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plan to Open Sea, an extensive exhibition catalogue and guide, Tingley presents a “groundbreaking, well-written study that charts the peoples, histories, cultures, and arts” of the ancient lands that became Viet Nam, commented Choice reviewer D. K. Dohanian. The book covers the time period from the second millennium BCE to the eighteenth century. Tingley traces the history and archaeology of the country through the objects and artifacts that make up the exhibition.
Another historical work, Buddhas, contains a collection of “images of Buddha from all over Asia,” noted a Reference & Research Book News contributor. Tingley includes detailed information on Buddhism and how it spread throughout Asia. She points out how the representation of Buddha has changed based on the needs, culture, and society of the converts, often recasting Buddha in local clothing and with different physical attributes. Tingley provides an explanation for each image and places it in the context of its time, place, and meaning.
A Head in Cambodia
Tingley has combined her extensive knowledge of Asian art with an interest in fiction writing to produce her first novel, A Head in Cambodia. This mystery novel introduces Jenna Murphy. the curator of Asian art at the Searles Museum in Marin County, California. Young and vivacious, Jenna doesn’t fit the traditional image of a museum curator, but she is nonetheless a serious historian and scholar. The story gets underway when P. P. Bhattacharya, an art collector and major donor to the museum, brings her a remarkable piece of sculpture. The stone head is supposed to represent a Radha, lover of the god Krishna. There is the question of whether the head is genuine or whether it is an outstanding reproduction. If real, it was stolen from Cambodia some years prior.
Bhattacharya found the sculpture at high-end yard sale of a fellow art collector, Tom Sharpen. Unfortunately, Sharpen is dead—beheaded, much like the statue where the stone head of Radha belongs. As Jenna looks into the case, she begins to suspect that the Bangkok-based dealer who sold the head to Sharpen was not who he said he was. In response, she, Bhattacharya, and several colleagues head to Cambodia where they undertake an extensive tour of the country’s temples and an investigation into the country’s underground art world. Even threats against Jenna, and more murders, won’t stop the group’s mission to discover more about the Radha head.
A Kirkus Reviews contributor called A Head in Cambodia a “pleasant diversion for a plane ride to the reader’s own adventure.” Catherine Lantz, writing in Xpress Reviews, commented: “This first novel stands out for its focus on Cambodian sculpture, history, and mythology.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice, November, 2009. D. K. Dohanian, review of Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea, p. 489.
Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2017, review of A Head in Cambodia.
New Yorker, March 1, 2010, Frances FitzGerald, “At the Museums,” profile of Nancy Tingley.
Publishers Weekly, January 9, 2017, review of A Head in Cambodia, p. 44.
Reference & Research Book News, May, 2009, review of Buddhas.
Xpress Reviews, March 3, 2017, Catherine Lantz, review of A Head in Cambodia.
ONLINE
Nancy Tingley Website, http://www.nancytingley.com (October 22, 2017).
Swallow Press Website, http://www.ohioswallow.com/ (October 22, 2017), description of A Head in Cambodia.
A Head in Cambodia
A Jenna Murphy Mystery
By Nancy Tingley
“In a crowded field of art history whodunits, this first novel stands out … Jenna, an unabashed sleuth both on and off the job, is a fresh new voice. A great pick for fans of Iain Pears and B.A. Shapiro looking to expand their geography.”
Library Journal
“Engaging and atmospheric.”
Bay Area Reporter
“In her stellar debut, Nancy Tingley combines art, murder, and Southeast Asia into a compelling tale. Deftly plotted and expertly executed, Tingley’s novel will keep readers up late at night. Jenna Murphy is a curator worth rooting for. We will be hearing more from this talented newcomer.”
Sheldon Siegel, author of Special Circumstances
“Nancy Tingley’s spellbinding mystery beautifully weaves together lush language, the intricacies of the Asian art world and page-turning tension. Richly rendered scenes follow one upon the other, making the reader wish the book would never end.”
Nina Schuyler, author of The Translator
When the alluring, eleventh-century Cambodian stone head of Radha, consort to Krishna, shows up at the Searles Museum, young curator Jenna Murphy doesn’t suspect that it will lead her to a murder. Asian art is her bailiwick, not criminal investigation, and her immediate concern is simply figuring out whether the head is one famously stolen from its body, or a fake.
When a second decapitation happens—this time of an art collector, not a statue—Jenna finds herself drawn into a different kind of mystery, and the stakes are life or death. It turns out that the same talents for research and for unraveling puzzles—the bread and butter of an art historian—have perfectly equipped her to solve crimes. She’s certain the sculpture provides clues to help her solve the case, which takes her to Thailand and Cambodia. But the collectors, dealers, and con artists of the Bangkok art world only compound her questions.
A Head in Cambodia is the fiction debut of noted Asian art expert Nancy Tingley. Readers will delight in the rarified world of collecting, as well as getting to know Jenna, an intrepid and shrewd observer who will easily find her place among V.I. Warshawski, Kinsey Milhone, and other great female sleuths.
Nancy Tingley is an independent art historian and consultant with a specialty in Asian art. She has worked extensively in the art world and as a museum curator. Most recently, she curated Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea, jointly organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Asia Society, New York.
At the Museums
March 1, 2010 Issue
More Than a War
By Frances FitzGerald
Back in the nineteen-sixties and the early nineteen-seventies, when American tourists were travelling halfway around the world to see the great temples of Cambodia and Burma, and rubbings from the friezes of Angkor were turning up in the rooms of college and grad students, Vietnam was considered simply a war zone. That it might also possess great treasures of ancient art and architecture occurred to few Americans at the time. Nancy Tingley was one exception. In 1974, as a student at U.C. Berkeley, she took a course in Southeast Asian art history that launched her on a career as a scholar in the field.
The other day, she was at the Asia Society to help install the first major exhibition of ancient Vietnamese art to come to this country. The show, which Tingley began working on twenty-one years ago, focusses on Vietnam as a hub in the trade routes that extended from Rome to Japan and includes more than a hundred objects dating from the first millennium B.C. to the seventeenth century. Among them are ritual drums and burial jars from the Bronze Age civilizations of northern and central Vietnam; sophisticated sculpture and jewelry from the ancient walled cities of Funan, in the Mekong Delta; and Hindu and Buddhist sculptures of the Cham, a seafaring people whose civilization flourished in central Vietnam contemporaneously with the Khmer Empire. Most of these objects have never been out of Vietnam, and some have only recently been dug up or rescued from ancient shipwrecks at the bottom of the South China Sea.
In a talk to the Asia Society’s docents, Tingley, a slim woman dressed in boots and black pants, described the exhibition in a precise, scholarly fashion, but on a tour of the galleries she almost skipped with delight. “That’s exquisite—so beautiful,” she said of a life-size wooden Buddha from Funan. “And they,” she said, pointing to a row of tiny elephants engraved on gold leaf, “they are so cute—so simple and natural.”
Tingley first went to Vietnam in 1988, thirteen years after the Vietnam War ended and seven years before the normalization of U.S.-Vietnamese relations. She and two colleagues from the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco were among the first visitors to the Ministry of Culture, and there were so few Americans in Vietnam that people on the streets thought they must be Russians. Yet everyone greeted them warmly. “They were wonderful to us,” Tingley said. “We felt as though we were embraced and the American war was behind us.” When the Ministry officials asked the scholars what they wanted to do, Tingley said that they wanted to drive from Danang to Ho Chi Minh City to see the Cham temples. “Everyone laughed. They thought that was hysterical,” she said. “No way we could get permission.” But when the travellers reached Danang, papers appeared authorizing them to hire a car and a driver. “The road was abominable,” Tingley recalled. “It looked like it hadn’t been repaired since the Americans left, in 1975.” Bicycles, water buffalo, and old French minibuses clogged the route. Their guide had no idea where the ruined Cham temples were, but the temples stood on hilltops and could be seen for miles. “I think they functioned as navigational markers for the traders,” Tingley said. “They were basically lighthouses.”
Despite the good will at the Ministry of Culture, it gradually became clear that an exhibition in the United States would not happen anytime soon. The two countries had no diplomatic relations, and Vietnamese law prohibited even the temporary export of objects that were more than a hundred years old. Yet Tingley persisted, returning to Vietnam year after year.
“Part of it was being a sixties person,” she said. “I wanted the American people to see that Vietnam is not just a war.” She went on, “I like the idea of showing the Cham art as this wonderful body of material that the French hated. They said the rudest things about it. They just didn’t like it, because it was kind of coarse and it was about power.” But, she said, “it’s the raw power and energy that attracts me.” The Cham were known as a fierce people. “So the fact that they wanted to describe the deity as a fierce, overpowering, dominating individual—I find that appealing. It doesn’t shilly-shally around but says, ‘I’m God, here I am.’ ” ♦
About the Author
Nancy Tingley is an independent art historian and consultant with a specialty in Asian art. She has worked extensively in the art world and as a museum curator. Most recently, she curated Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea, jointly organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Asia Society in New York.
Tingley, Nancy: A HEAD IN CAMBODIA
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Tingley, Nancy A HEAD IN CAMBODIA Swallow Press/Ohio Univ. (Adult Fiction) $27.95 3, 15 ISBN: 978-0-8040-
1185-3
An unlikely California curator investigating Cambodian art forgery stumbles onto murder.Jenna Murphy is the curator
of Asian art at Marin's Searles Museum. With her purple hair and miniskirts, she's younger and sexier than anyone
expects a curator to be. P.P. Bhattacharya, a collector and major donor to the museum, brings her an exquisite stone head
depicting Radha, lover of the god Krishna. It might be the missing sculpture stolen from a Cambodian museum a few
years ago, or it might just be a superb copy. Improbably enough, P.P. found the head at a yard sale--and not just any yard
sale, but the estate sale of a fellow collector who was brutally decapitated. To uncover the head's true provenance, Jenna
finds herself leading a tour of the temples of Cambodia with a motley crew of the museum's most dedicated patrons,
including P.P., a young techie with an anger problem, and his glamorous wife, Jenna's troublesome boss, and some
feisty senior citizens. As P.P. leads Jenna to art dealers and sculptors who might know whether the head is a treasure or a
fake, Jenna's budding romance with a handsome doctor is set against detailed descriptions of Cambodia's cities and
ancient temples. There'll be threats against Jenna's life and more murders before long-awaited justice is served.
Tingley's debut is more travelogue than mystery, with some crucial plot points left unexplained--a pleasant diversion for
a plane ride to the reader's own adventure.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Tingley, Nancy: A HEAD IN CAMBODIA." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2017. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479234626&it=r&asid=0740b931425d3c264137bd774f302798.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
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A Head in Cambodia: A Jenna Murphy Mystery
Publishers Weekly.
264.2 (Jan. 9, 2017): p44.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
A Head in Cambodia: A Jenna Murphy Mystery
Nancy Tingley. Swallow, $27.95 (336p)
ISBN 978-0-8040-1185-3
At the start of Tingley's intriguing if inconclusive first mystery starring Jenna Murphy, curator of Asian art at the
Searles Museum in Marin County, Calif., P.P. Bhattacharya, a trustee and patron of the museum, shows Jenna a stone
head that he thinks was stolen from a famous Cambodian sculpture five years earlier. P.P. bought the head at a garage
sale of the family of collector Tom Sharpen, who was murdered--decapitated in fact. Jenna learns enough about
Sharpens transactions with a Bangkok dealer who Sharpen thought cheated him to suspect that the dealer was a man
called Grey. Jenna leads a group, which includes P.P., on a tour to Cambodia. During their tour of lovingly described
temples, they encounter Grey, wealthy collector Mr. Cha, and an evil man known only as the Ghost. Life-threatening
attacks derail Jenna and P.P.'s attempts to learn more about the stone head. Readers should be prepared for a
Pollyannaish climax and a lack of clear answers to the assorted mysteries. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"A Head in Cambodia: A Jenna Murphy Mystery." Publishers Weekly, 9 Jan. 2017, p. 44. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA477339283&it=r&asid=b320d4f2292195398bed71cdfdcf2eff.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A477339283
10/1/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Tingley, Nancy. Arts of ancient Viet Nam: from
river plain to open sea
D.K. Dohanian
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
47.3 (Nov. 2009): p489.
COPYRIGHT 2009 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Full Text:
47-1243
N7314
2008-42384 CIP
Tingley, Nancy. Arts of ancient Viet Nam: from river plain to open sea, by Nancy Tingley with Andreas Reincke et al.
Asia Society and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2009. (Dist. by Yale) 356p bibl index afp ISBN 9780300146967,
$60.00
Tingley (independent scholar) offers a groundbreaking, well-written study that charts the peoples, histories, cultures,
and arts of the narrow strip of land that became Viet Nam--from the late 2nd millennium BCE to the 18th century.
Nationhood fluctuated with the passage of time, the impress of neighboring states, and the evolution of a national
identity. The story unfolds based on the conventional grist of historico-archaeological data, and expanded by reference
to visual artifacts that are, in fact, the principal focus of the discourse. This book accompanies an extraordinary
exhibition drawn from the holdings of nine Viet Nam museums and currently on view in the US. But this volume is
much more than an exhibition catalogue and guide. The editors have organized this well-structured book as discourse
coequal with objects from the exhibition; essays are in four chronologically arranged parts, each of which is expanded
with a catalogue of objects that refer to the time and space factors appropriate to the theme of the essay. The essays and
catalogue are supported by excellent photographs. An appendix offers material about ceramics from shipwrecks. Useful
bibliography and index. Summing Up: Essential. **** Lower-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers; general
readers.--D. K. Dohanian, emeritus, University of Rochester
Dohanian, D.K.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Dohanian, D.K. "Tingley, Nancy. Arts of ancient Viet Nam: from river plain to open sea." CHOICE: Current Reviews
for Academic Libraries, Nov. 2009, p. 489. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA266633507&it=r&asid=50b3e4fb8272bf1ae79822e0b3c0c425.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A266633507
10/1/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Buddhas
Reference & Research Book News.
24.2 (May 2009):
COPYRIGHT 2009 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
Full Text:
9780764948008
Buddhas.
Tingley, Nancy.
Pomegranate Communications
2009
120 pages
$29.95
Hardcover
N8193
Tingley, an expert in Southeast Asian history and art, presents a selection of the images of Buddha from all over Asia.
The plates are beautifully reproduced in full-page color. Tingley first gives a concise synopsis of the history of
Buddhism and its spread. She notes that the representations and symbols are not univalent but have altered meaning and
form slightly to suit the converts of the region. They often reflect differences in physical appearance and national dress,
but the main components are always the same. Each image is explained in terms of time, place and apparent meanings.
([c]2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Buddhas." Reference & Research Book News, May 2009. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA199021669&it=r&asid=9ef806ef00665049241080e49ee23db0.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A199021669
10/1/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1506885472598 5/5
Tingley, Nancy. A Head in Cambodia
Catherine Lantz
Xpress Reviews.
(Mar. 3, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/xpress/884170-289/xpress_reviews-first_look_at_new.html.csp
Full Text:
Tingley, Nancy. A Head in Cambodia. Swallow: Ohio Univ. (Jenna Murphy Mysteries). Mar. 2017. 336p. ISBN
9780804011853. $26.95. MYS
[DEBUT] Tingley, an independent art consultant and curator, makes her mystery debut with this new series featuring
Jenna Murphy, a curator specializing in Asian art. Already swamped preparing for the opening of an exhibit on Chinese
Qing ceramics, Jenna is intrigued when her friend, a generous museum donor, asks her to authenticate a sculpture.
Found at a garage sale, the intricately carved stone head may be a missing part of an 11th-century Khmer masterpiece or
an incredible fake. As Jenna investigates, the previous owner is murdered. His decapitation seems a warning to those
who continue to study the stone head. Jenna is asked to lead a last-minute tour to Thailand and Cambodia for museum
patrons, and she finds that danger has followed her overseas.
Verdict In a crowded field of art history whodunits, this first novel stands out for its focus on Cambodian sculpture,
history, and mythology. Jenna, an unabashed sleuth both on and off the job, is a fresh new voice. A great pick for fans of
of Iain Pears and B.A. Shapiro looking to expand their geography.--Catherine Lantz, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Lantz, Catherine. "Tingley, Nancy. A Head in Cambodia." Xpress Reviews, 3 Mar. 2017. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA489080928&it=r&asid=ea8cbf4c09b2acfa2b25f49939ae438f.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A489080928