Art Lover: A Novel - Hardcover

Maso, Carole

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865474273 ISBN 13: 9780865474277

Publisher: North Point Pr, 1990

Synopsis

Caroline, the daughter of a famous art historian, tries to come to terms with her memories of him and of her mother, who committed suicide twenty-five years before

About this title

Reviews

Caroline, a novelist and poet, returns from an isolated artists colony to Manhattan, where her widowed, art-historian father has recently died. As one strand of the narrative follows her rediscovery of the city--and of a friend diagnosed with AIDS--another follows the characters she creates in her prose; interspersed throughout are reproductions of pictures and newspaper clippings that inspire her. This narrative cord ruptures with the introduction of "Carole," the persona of Maso, and descriptions of herself at work on the novel while her own beloved friend is dying, Carole/the writer's art incapable of saving him. Despite its trendy structure and themes, this work is steered by anything but a narcissistic postmodernism. Maso ( Ghost Dance ) is not content to muse on the relationship between life and art; she brings to life a "bombardment of images and sounds," fashioning a pattern of astonishing complexity and beauty. The tough-mindedness, originality and wit of her perceptions are intoxicating.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This nontraditional novel presents an experimental face to the reader: illustrations, newspaper clips, and art reproductions are interspersed with a story line buried within a story--perhaps within yet another story. The narrator, a novelist, has moved back to New York to settle her father's estate (he was an art historian). She struggles with her grief and guilt at her father's death and stands by a childhood friend who is dying of AIDS. She begins another novel: by giving the conflicts in her life a fictional context, she tries to bring order and beauty--and some degree of understanding--out of chaos. Interesting reading for those with a literary bent.
- Linda L. Rome, Mentor, Ohio
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: North Point Pr
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0865474273
• ISBN 13: 9780865474277
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 249