Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Greater than the sum


Weirdly, I didn't like this book all that much, but it made me want to read more of Kate Christensen's writing. In The Great Man, she looks at the women who surrounded and supported a famous New York artist, who (five years after his death) has two biographers trying to analyze his life and find his secrets. The meetings with the writers allow the women (the artist's wife, mistress, and sister) to explore their own feelings about the man. The characters and story were interesting, but it wasn't the sort of book that made me want to keep reading it. Christensen's writing style is rather nice, though, and the characters were certainly vivid and well-developed, if a bit stereotypical at times.

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