The village idiot : a novel
(Book)
Author
Published
Brooklyn : Melville House, 2022.
Status
Central Library - Fiction - Adult
Stern, S.
1 available
Stern, S.
1 available
Description
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Copies
Location | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Central Library - Fiction - Adult | Stern, S. | On Shelf |
More Details
Published
Brooklyn : Melville House, 2022.
Format
Book
Physical Desc
361 pages : illustration ; 24 cm
Language
English
Notes
General Note
A fictionalized account of the life of expressionist painter Chaim Soutine follows his life and career in Paris, his friendship with Amedeo Modigliani, his sudden success and rise to fame, and his flight from the Nazi occupation of France.
Description
A wild, effervescent, absinthe-soaked novel that tells of the life of the extraordinary artist Chaim Soutine. Steve Stern's astonishing new novel The Village Idiot begins on a glorious spring day in Paris 1917. Amid the carnage of World War I, some of the foremost artists of the age have chosen to stage a boat race. At the head of the regatta is Amedeo Modigliani, seated regally in a bathtub pulled by a flock of canvasback ducks. But unbeknownst to the competition, he has a secret advantage: his young friend, the immigrant painter Chaim Soutine, is hauling the tub from underwater. Soutine, an unwashed, misfit artist (who incidentally can't swim) has been persuaded by the Italian to don a ponderous diving suit and trudge along the floor of the river Seine. Disoriented and confused by the artificial air in his helmet Chaim stumbles through the events of his past and future life. It's quite an extraordinary life. From his impoverished beginnings in an East European shtetl to his equally destitute days in Paris during the Années Folles, the Crazy Years, from the Cinderella patronage of the American collector Albert Barnes, who raises him from poverty to international attention, to his perilous flight from the Nazi occupation of France, Chaim Soutine remains driven by his unrelenting passion to paint. To be sure, there are notable distractions, such as his unlikely friendship with Modigliani, who drags him from brothels to midnight felonies to a duel at dawn; there are the romances with remarkable women who compete with and sometimes salvage his obsession. But there is also, always on the horizon, the coming storm that threatens to sweep away Chaim and a generation of gifted Jewish refugees from a tradition that would outlaw their longing to make art. Wildly inventive, as funny as it is heart-breaking, The Village Idiot is a luminous fever-dream of a novel, steeped in the heady atmosphere of a Paris that was the cultural capital of the universe, a place where anything seemed possible.
Citations
APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)
Stern, S. (2022). The village idiot: a novel . Melville House.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Stern, Steve, 1947-. 2022. The Village Idiot: A Novel. Melville House.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Stern, Steve, 1947-. The Village Idiot: A Novel Melville House, 2022.
MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)Stern, Steve. The Village Idiot: A Novel Melville House, 2022.
Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.
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