Carey chooses to tell the story with sections narrated by Michael and Hugh, and the latter's view of things is predictably skewed and loopy. He's Michael's messy burden to bear, since their parents are dead and he can't countenance leaving Hugh in institutional hands. But what really makes the novel work is the interplay among its three central characters: Michael, Marlene and Michael's brother, Hugh, a 220-pound, 6-foot-4-inch, 34-year-old child. The scamming, fakery and double-crossing of Carey's novel is entertaining enough. Michael has nothing but contempt for art critics, but he quotes with approval something Clement Greenberg supposedly said: "The problem with art is the people who buy it." Another artist in the novel charges that art dealers "are the most larcenous people on Earth." What's a struggling artist to do, then, but play their game? Which Michael learns to do under Marlene's masterly tutelage. He will also discover that she's a thief.īut in the art world of Carey's novel, theft is everywhere. He soon discovers she's married to the son of a celebrated early 20th-century artist, Jacques Leibovitz, and is involved in the authentication of that master's works. Trying to revive his career, Michael has launched a new series of paintings when he encounters a sophisticated, enigmatic young woman named Marlene.
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