When ancient notebooks turn up in a Long Island garage, Peter Van Overloop, a Columbia graduate student, sets to translating them, and finds himself immersed in the life and times of the Dutch painter Frans Hals. For the notebooks seem to be Hals's diaries, and proving their authenticity could make Peter famous and the owners rich.

But beyond their historical resonance and potential value, the diaries offer a fascinating portrait of a man living in the age of Rembrandt and Descartes, and bursting with a lust for the world that surrounds him. With his sharp and knowing painter's eye, Hals observes and records the joys and hardships of his life, from marriage and family to the great tulip crash, the plague, and his continuing struggle to earn a living as a portrait artist.

Emerging as a thoroughly funny, charming, energetic man, Hals reaches out from centuries past to touch and change Peter's life forever. A seamless merging of literary invention and historic fact, The Lost Diaries of Frans Hals is a remarkable, unforgettable novel.