11 Aug Kate Christensen’s, The Great Man
From the acclaimed author of The Epicure’s Lament, comes a grand new novel of literary contention in which two competing biographers collide in their quest for the truth about a great artist.
Oscar Feldman, the “Great Man,” is a New York city painter of the heroic generation of the 40s and 50s. Rather than focusing on abstract canvases like Pollock and Rothko, he stubbornly holds to painting one subject alone—the female nude. Upon his passing in 2001, he leaves behind a wife, Abigail, an autistic son, and a sister, Maxine, herself a notable abstract painter.
What no one knows is that Oscar lived another life in Brooklyn with his longtime mistress, Teddy St. Cloud, and their twin daughters. As the hardened bohemian Teddy puts it, “He couldn’t live without a woman around. It was like water to a plant for him.” Now two rival biographers, book contracts in hand, are whirling around Feldman’s life story, and each of these three women—Abigail, Maxine, and Teddy—now have an opportunity to tell the “truth” as they experienced it.
As the women begin sketching their versions of him for the young biographers working on very disparate accounts of his life, long-buried grudges corrode their protectiveness, revealing a stage for secrets to be spilled and relationships to be tested. Christensen relays the story with astonishing compassion and grace, her characters are fully alive, strong sexual beings.
Wrestling with the difficult life questions for which there are no simple answers, i.e., What is love? What is art? What is family, Christensen provides a truly eloquent story.
KATE CHRISTENSEN is the author of the novels In the Drink, Jeremy Thrane, and The Epicure’s Lament. Her essays and articles have appeared in various publications, including Salon, Mademoiselle, the Hartford Courant, Elle, and the bestselling anthology The Bitch in the House. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband.
Come meet Kate Christiansen.
@ McNally Robinson Booksellers 52 Prince Street New York, NY 10012
on Tuesday, August 14th, 7 PM
Networking site Mediabistro.com will be cohosting the reception for the book, featuring plenty of Sancerre and other temptations from the novel.
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