Original Color - Hardcover

Kennedy, Hugh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385477368 ISBN 13: 9780385477369

Publisher: Nan A. Talese, 1996

Synopsis

A satirical, zany novel about the cutthroat world of art dealers follows the coming-of-age of a young, sincere Princeton graduate who becomes the protege+a7 of a Machiavellian dealer. By the author of Everything Looks Impressive.

About this title

Review

The time: 1987, after the stock market crisis. The setting: a high-priced, low-scruples gallery in Boston where the value of a work of art is measured strictly in terms of the price it might command. Our guide through this milieu is Fred Layton, a Southern-born Princeton graduate whose job consists mainly of trying to charm rich Boston socialites into buying overpriced old maps and prints. He excels at his job but struggles to hide both his less-than-affluent background and sexual preferences. Hypocrisy and humor abound in this parody of the worlds of high art and high social standing.

From Kirkus Reviews

A follow-up to 1993's endearing Everything Looks Impressive, with a whiplash funny sprint through the merciless memory of the late-1980s overstuffed art scene. Kennedy's book might well have been titled Everything Looks Impressive, but Not for Long. Why? Because in the burgeoning career of recent Princeton grad Fred Layton, the 1987 Black Monday stock market crash is right around the corner. Not that Fred's new employer, unscrupulous art dealer and all-around nouveau riche reptile Nelson Albright, gives a hoot. This, after all, is a man who owes Sotheby's millions. Promised by Albright that he'll be a millionaire by the time he's 30, Fred settles into indentured servitude at Albright's Boston gallery, contending with the boss's tidal caprices, sidestepping the plots of a backstabbing fellow salesman, developing jaundiced art-world versions of collegiality and friendship, and struggling--peripherally--with his homosexuality. While wooing several major clients, including a former cocaine trafficker and a wealthy North Carolina society matron, Fred learns how to lie through his teeth, improvise art history, and pass off damaged prints as rare art. He even gets picked up by a luscious Texas antiques dealer, but he fails to muster the gumption to betray the supremely self-interested Albright. After the crash, Albright's already shaky finances undergo a full-fledged assault from a rival dealer, Oksana Outka, who raids her main competitor's clientele and schemes to have Albright exiled from the art world. Fred makes a hobby of rescuing Albright from the abyss, but the flamboyant gallerist's abusive, blowtorch personality leaves Fred dreaming of escape, and the action concludes with a memorable confrontation at a Sotheby's auction. Kennedy showcases a talent for deft plotting, wonderfully bitchy dialogue, and for savage caricature, memorably rendering the hypermoneyed as a pack of jackals mistaking the smell of dollars for good taste. A droll, madcap, witty, downright old-fashioned romp that mixes dynamite satire with featherweight tragedy. Kennedy was one to watch. Now he's one to wait for. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Nan A. Talese
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0385477368
• ISBN 13: 9780385477369
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 282