Written in the first person, we are introduced to one of the most wonderful collections of misfits and dysfunctional characters I've had the pleasure of meeting between the pages of a book in the longest time. There's Kirk who paints pictures of cutlery, Hector's oldest friend Lenny Snook who does billboard campaigns for bottled water in his underwear when he's not doing award-winning conceptual art that involves filling a Cadillac with blood and digging a hole in a gallery floor.
But it's the world of contemporary art that is the true eccentric in this book. Hector has made his name by selling huge portraits of people's heads and is able to make a good living from the proceeds. But, he's not the one being nominated for an award. He's plagued with self-doubts about whether giant heads are what the world needs more of, and when a motorcycle accidentally drives through the centre of his first self-portrait, it's like a sign from the Gods.
It hadn't been a good week up until then for him anyway — earlier he had broken into tears in the Tate gallery in London England while looking at The Scream by Edvard Munch (a pretty healthy reaction I would have thought). Then he finds out that Kirk has a brain tumour. What's especially disquieting about this is that he finds that he's actually jealous of Kirk.
It's not that he wants to die, but he'd give anything to get the kind of attention that Kirk is getting now. Of course if Kirk were to actually die then that would be different, because he, Hector, would then get some of that pity because he would be the friend of a person who died of a brain tumour. One can only hope.
Article comments
1 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
I think you sold me on the book--thanks, Richard.
2 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net , which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States, and to Boston.com. Nice work!