Book Review: Lady Lazarus by Andrew Foster Altschul

In life as in art, the mythology surrounding a person or thing often becomes the thing itself. It's too easy, especially in the modern information age, to create a narrative that works and stick with it, even if this muddies the "truth," if you will.

For example, a rock star like Kurt Cobain spends most of his adult life creating music that has personal meaning, and as the public consumes and demands more from him, it becomes too much; Cobain commits suicide, and suddenly it is the myth of the man, the larger-than-life musician who suffers for his art that becomes his legacy. What is forgotten is that his every move was marketed and packaged by a corporate entity, and that his band Nirvana would have been nothing if it weren't for pure luck and a bit of cash thrown at them.

The personal difficulties of an artist in this modern age are put on show for the consuming public, and over time, it's difficult to split the artist from the art itself. As much as the artist may say it's not about him or her, it's about the art, the public sees it all as one package. When the celebrity, the myth, if you will, becomes bigger than the art, things just get more and more absurd. For example, would we rather read about Britney Spears' latest custody battle or actually force ourselves to listen to her music? Which one, when we're honest with ourselves, is more entertaining?

Andrew Foster Altschul's Lady Lazarus is a novel that takes the idea of celebrity and turns it upside down. Written like a rock biography, Lady Lazarus follows Calliope Bird Morath, a young poet and daughter of the now infamous Brandt Morath, former lead singer of fictional rock band Terrible Children who blew his brains out in front of the young Calliope (or so legend has it). Using Kurt Cobain's life and suicide as his guide, Altschul creates an absurd world of rock star excess that collides with the literary establishment as filtered through a sensationalist mainstream media. While Calliope's life takes center stage, Altschul shows there is no discovery of biographical "Truth"; instead, the narrative is clouded by the mythology surrounding her and the excesses of her life.

The novel begins with Altschul putting himself in the middle of the biography. The narrator, Altschul himself, seeks to find the truth about Calliope's life that begins with her as the daughter - and therefore rightful heir - of Brandt Morath's artistic legacy. She becomes the figure shining in the window of her home, who, after her father's tragic suicide, is greeted by Terrible Children's fans as a shining beacon of artistry. One of those fans is the narrator, who further clouds the memory of the Morath family even as he seeks out the "Truth" as he sees it.

Article Author: Kevin Eagan

Kevin Eagan is a Blogcritics Books Editor and (occasional) freelance writer based in the Greater St. Louis, MO area. He also writes at There There Kid, a blog that focuses on literature, culture, and music.

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