MAKER OF SAINTS
A novel about art, grief, and murder in New York's art world, built around friendship and obsession.
Work Information
A novel about art, grief, and murder in New York's art world, built around friendship and obsession.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Scribner
- Published
- 1996-10-16
- Pages
- 256 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 14.88 x 2.26 x 22.2 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780684812250
- ISBN-10
- 0684812258
- Price
- 11635 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Contemporary
Bird Kincaid can't sleep. She is plagued by nightmares - vivid images of Alex Decatur falling through the air. One month after she witnesses Alex, her closest friend, plunge eight stories to her death, Bird's grief has transformed into obsession. In adjoining apartments on a boisterous, vibrant New York City block, the two young black women, Bird a radio engineer and onetime painter, and Alex a beautiful performance artist, had built an intense and unique friendship, their lives intertwined by shared space, history, friends and occasionally lovers, and a passion for art. Alex's death shatters the core of Bird's existence, compelling her to search for comfort and answers amidst the disparate strands of her friend's quixotic life - a life sometimes glamorous, sometimes painful, sometimes reckless. Was Alex's death really a suicide? Her lover, a white art critic, was never charged with a crime, but Bird is increasingly convinced that he murdered her friend. Desperate for evidence, Bird locates a bizarre series of videotapes among Alex's belongings, in which she talks about her personal life, her work, and her turbulent relationship with her lover. At first reluctantly but soon fervidly watching the tapes, Bird discovers both startling secrets and blatant lies as she is drawn back into their carefree vagabond past and across mythic boundaries in the dangerous present. In the novel's intensely dramatic finale, Bird must confront her own long-hidden demons and test her powers as an artist and a survivor.
Thulani Davis teaches writing at Princeton University and Barnard College.
Reviews
-
This book was better than I anticipated. Part One took a while to get through, but I couldn't put the book down once I got past it. Overall, the entirety of this story was wonderfully crafted with imagery and emotion. This is definitely something I wouldn't mind reading again!
-
Not what I expected. It was confusing and the daydreaming or flashbacks threw me off. I guess if I understand the art world better I could have finished it. It started off good but I lost interest. The details were good, I could visualize all that she wrote, I just couldn't get it to flow and make sense to me.