Dickson raises, but doesn’t answer, fascinating questions about personal transformation, religion and aesthetics.
A novel of metaphysical and aesthetic mystery.
Sheridan Ridler is something of a jerk—a womanizing, dope-smoking, self-centered artist, nurturing himself and his genius but odious when it comes to human relationships. When gallery owner and art agent Talbot Graves realizes that Ridler’s canvases, which he’s been selling for impressive profits to the likes of Zero Mostel, would be even more valuable were the supply limited, he decides to off the artist. But what starts out as a planned murder becomes a freakish accident when Graves’ car bumps Ridler into the Harlem River. Although Graves is certain Ridler is dead, the artist emerges bruised but reborn—in his temporary watery grave he’s seen “the Glory,” an evanescent image of transcendence that he now longs to paint. He disappears for 25 years, traveling the world (Mexico, Rome, Istanbul, Paris), and eventually hooks up with a seedy little circus run by the symbolically named Esperanza. During this time, Ridler seeks out works of other artists who have tried to convey the ineffable, and he paints furiously, trying to capture this same Mystery. When his frustration peaks, he anonymously mails paintings to Suzanna and to Graves, apologizing for his previous behavior and hoping that their forgiveness will give him another glimpse of the Glory. But when Graves discusses this new gift with Emil Lacuna, incongruously a cold-blooded killer and a collector of Ridlers, Emil knows that the value of his collection will diminish impressively if new canvases hit the market, so he murders Graves and stalks Ridler. Complicating the narrative is Gemma, Ridler’s daughter by Suzanna, though Ridler doesn’t know of her existence—she’s an art expert who authenticates the new Ridler canvases and then goes on a quest to find her father.
Dickson raises, but doesn’t answer, fascinating questions about personal transformation, religion and aesthetics.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4165-8348-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Howard Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.
A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch.
“Monsters are a boon for gods. Imagine all the prayers.” So says Circe, a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller’s dazzling second novel. The writer returns to Homer, the wellspring that led her to an Orange Prize for The Song of Achilles (2012). This time, she dips into The Odyssey for the legend of Circe, a nymph who turns Odysseus’ crew of men into pigs. The novel, with its distinctive feminist tang, starts with the sentence: “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.” Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child. It takes banishment to the island Aeaea for Circe to sense her calling as a sorceress: “I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.” This lonely, scorned figure learns herbs and potions, surrounds herself with lions, and, in a heart-stopping chapter, outwits the monster Scylla to propel Daedalus and his boat to safety. She makes lovers of Hermes and then two mortal men. She midwifes the birth of the Minotaur on Crete and performs her own C-section. And as she grows in power, she muses that “not even Odysseus could talk his way past [her] witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead.” Circe’s fascination with mortals becomes the book’s marrow and delivers its thrilling ending. All the while, the supernatural sits intriguingly alongside “the tonic of ordinary things.” A few passages coil toward melodrama, and one inelegant line after a rape seems jarringly modern, but the spell holds fast. Expect Miller’s readership to mushroom like one of Circe’s spells.
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-55634-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
PROFILES
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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