rather self-indulgent. interesting in as far as first hand view of making it as artist in cut-throat new york art scene. but all that mother son oedipal stuff was pretty boring. ( )

Once, long ago when we were young, Geoff told me about an article on T.S. Eliot's influence on Shakespeare. That is, even with Shakespeare coming chronologically first, one reads T.S. Eliot, one reads Shakespeare, one's feelings on T.S. Eliot can influence one's thoughts on Shakespeare. What supercedes what? Does it even matter?

And so we come to The Art Fair, a re-release of a book from 1996, and if a publisher is going to re-release a book from 1996 in 2014 (yes I slacked on reading this and getting the review out; it's like a year late) about a boy and his mother in New York City at the core and, more often, at the fringes of the art world, it's hard not to see this a cynical grab at getting The Goldfinch's readers' attentions and money. Even though, obviously, The Art Fair's original publication date predates The Goldfinch's by a decade.

(T.S. Eliot? Shakespeare? I'd link to that article if I could find it. I mentioned it to Geoff yesterday. He remembers telling me about it too.)

So we have The Art Fair, a muddle of an author's first attempt at the Great American Novel:

• a lyrical and ethereal childhood so rudely interrupted;


• a wunderkindness in the narrator's voice;


• attempts at bettering one's social station;


• an uneasy relationship with his father;


• the mother as a concept; and of course


• a confused male narrator meant to be every man.

We may as well keep adding bullet points for first novel problems:

• complete disregard for POV, with Richard, our narrator, narrating things that happen far outside his line of sight;


• thousands of vaguely identical characters (all of whom are clearly slightly fictionalized versions of people from the New York art scene of the seventies and eighties, not that I have any knowledge of that scene or know who anyone was supposed to be). For awhile, I searched through my ePub when names came up to remember who they were. Then I stopped. Having a decent idea of who these people are doesn't matter at all to the plot;
  
• the first fifty percent, almost exactly (don't you love those percentages in your e-reader), takes place over twenty-one years. The last fifty percent over two days. Like background, then action, a short story that got stretched out into a novel.

In short, we have a book all of potential, nothing in execution. I mean:

In all the time I have known her ...

is a phrase Richard applies to his mother. In all the time he has known his mother? Do people in New York really talk like that? It's a phrase used for an acquaintance, not a blood relative you've been with since birth.

In any case, Joan, the mother, gets into the art world by mimicking the style of another artist. This book mimicks, and badly, The Goldfinch, even though I know that it can't really be doing that at all. But, read a book about the cynical art world, that cynicism is going to leach out of me into my review I suppose.

The author hung out with DFW, so I love him for that. I think his later writings will be a treat, but this is just too sticky and lumpy to really want to have a go on.

The Art Fair by David Lipsky was re-released on sale August 26, 2014.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Richard choses to live with his artist mother in NYC after the divorce, and his childhood is like few others experiences. It’s filled with art shows, art critics and other artists. He’s a great narrator to tell the story of a great has-been artist dependent on art critics for her livelihood. Richard shares the jealousies and attempts at one-upsmanhip in the art world. The story is poignant and satisfying even for someone like me who says “get over it and get a real job so your child can enjoy his childhood!” ( )

This might be of interest to other art-world nerds like me--it's a roman à clef featuring characters such as Clement Greenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Andre Emerich, etc.--but unfortunately it lacks the structure (or the point, really) to make for a good novel. ( )