Starred review from May 16, 2022
A quartet of artists negotiate love, ambition, and politics during the 2011 Occupy movement in Angress’s winning debut. Nineteen-year-old Louisa Arceneaux is a new transfer student at the fictional Wrynn College in New England, arriving from her native Louisiana. Her roommate, the icy and beautiful Karina Piontek, is everything Louisa is not: worldly, wealthy, and confident. Preston Utley, a senior, questions the school’s relevance in the modern age. The yin to Utley’s yang is Robert Berger, a teacher whose own art career, once white-hot, has atrophied. Angress nimbly embodies each of her characters, allowing her exceptional storytelling abilities to shine. When Louisa asks Karina to pose for a painting, the initial reticence between the two fades, and something more volatile emerges. Preston and Karina begin a romantic relationship on unequal footing, while Preston, a member of the school’s Occupy group, antagonizes an increasingly desperate Robert by excoriating his work in Artforum, and the novel’s first part ends with a major rupture. In part two, set over the following year, the characters have left Wrynn’s bubble for New York City, where Preston and Karina prepare for a joint debut show at Robert’s former gallery, and Angress sweeps everything toward a wonderfully complex conclusion. This is a standout. Agent: Marya Spence, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.
Starred review from June 1, 2022
DEBUT Having won several awards in the workshopping run-up to publication of her first novel, Angress emerges with a brilliant study of art, politics, male dominance, female passion, and the commercialized art world in the early 2010s. Occupy Wall Street has erupted even as women's art remains undervalued when Cajun Louisa Arceneaux transfers to the fictional New England Wrynn College of Art on scholarship and is fired up both artistically and personally by prickly, prodigiously gifted roommate Karina Piontek, daughter of wealthy New York art collectors. Considered difficult and unstable by her classmates, Karina disdains them in turn; her upbringing by embattled, bruisingly neglectful parents has left her with the desire (and canniness) to make art that will bring her glory. Homesick Louisa regards her roommate cautiously, but when she uses Karina as a model for her bloody-winged bird woman paintings, the two begin a relationship that is the bedrock of the novel. Meanwhile, Karina remains involved with self-regarding senior-class agitator Preston Utley, who challenges a visiting professor once famous for his political paintings but now struggling for relevance, and these relationships shift and explode in multiple ways that drive the absorbing narrative. VERDICT A highly recommended novel of art and heart that viscerally represents the act of creation while balancing multiple themes to perfection.
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
May 15, 2022
Art, money, and ambition collide, first at a prestigious college and again in New York City. In 2011, 19-year-old Louisa Arceneaux feels out of place at Wrynn College of Art in the fictional New England town of Stonewater. The Louisiana native is attending Wrynn on scholarship, and most of her wealthy peers initially dismiss her paintings as "Southern Gothic Lite." Louisa's roommate is the icy and beautiful Karina Piontek, daughter of rich yet unhappy art collectors, who had a mental breakdown last semester before returning suspiciously quickly to Wrynn. Karina and Louisa, both queer women, are drawn to each other, first as fellow creatives, then as friends, then lovers, and Karina becomes the model for Louisa's new series of gruesome and beautiful paintings. Karina is also sleeping with senior Preston Utley, a controversial figure who runs a mildly successful blog called The Wart, where he posts provocative photoshopped images designed to maximize internet traffic. Preston desires to "live outside capitalism" and produce truly radical art while at the same time he's desperately seeking a way to free himself from dependence on his toxic father's wealth. Meanwhile, washed-up painter Robert Berger comes to Wrynn as the artist-in-residence, trying to restart a stalled career that never lived up to the promise of his controversial breakout painting, Dying Man, a portrait of his best friend that Berger painted while Vince was in the hospital dying of AIDS. Preston, Karina, and Louisa push themselves to challenge the boundaries of their art and their abilities until a vicious prank upends all the characters' lives. In the aftermath, they try to make fresh starts in New York City, where it's only a matter of time before their paths converge again. Though the novel can at times be heavy-handed in its messaging, it does an admirable job of parsing such difficult issues as the role of capitalism in art, and references to events such as the Occupy movement give the novel real-world context. The main characters have believable flaws and nuances, and the narrative is adept at interrogating the power imbalances in both the characters' personal relationships and in an art world rife with sexism and classism. An intriguing exploration of art and wealth spearheaded by messy, engrossing characters.
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