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"...a wise, adroit novel, resplendent with shimmering, incisive writing, about the New York art scene and what it's like to be young there, or aging. A mature accomplished debut." -- Edward Hoagland Belle Prokoff is the last of a famous generation of painters for whom art was a secular religion --worthy any amount of struggle and sacrifice for its promise of redemption. She is alsothe widow of Clay Madden, who revolutionized American art, became a near-mythic figure, and died in a drunken car crash. Blunt, fierce, and scornful of the world's hypocirsy, Belle has passionately protected her husband's memory in the three decades since his death. She has also persevered with her painting while the denizens of the fashionable art scene fawn over her not for her own work but for the valuable Madden canvases she clings to as the last relic of her tormented marriage. Now, facing the prospect of her impending death, Belle is confronted with another kind of threat: an unscrupulous biographer is snooping around in her past, working on a sensational book about Madden's life. Before her battle to silence him spirals out of control, she is forced to make her peace with peopl and events that have haunted her for decades. But Modern Art is not just Belle's story. It is the story of all those still living in Madden's shadow, from his flamboyant ex-dealer to a paranoid drug addict who sees himself as Madden's spiritual son. It is the story of Paul, a younger painter aspiring to Madden's greatness but so obsessed with the art world's neglect of him that he becomes a victim of his own bitterness. And it is the story of Lizzie, a naive romantic who has made Paul the center of her existence --a mistake Belle recognizes all too well when she hires Lizzie as her live-in companion. Inspired by the lives of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, this elegaic, impassioned novel creates a ficitonal universe full of vivid characters and intense confrontations. It is a tale of betrayal and longing, renunciation and self-discovery: the age-old conflicts of love and art. "Evelyn Toynton has produced a terrific portrait of Belle Prokoff, an artist living out the unenviable legacy of being the survivor, wife and widow, of her more famous husband. Toynton gives a straight and unrelenting view of the art world and its inmates. Her writing is wise, funny and full of yeast." -- Lynn Freed "Modern Art is a novel for the grown-ups. Evelyn Toynton has perfect pitch. Her imaginative take on the gritty, suicidal transactions of the men and women who made the New York School their absolute religion is an amazing achievement." -- Barbara Probst Solomon "In sentences as elegant and exciting
as abstract expressionism, Evelyn Toynton re-presents to us the idea
and ideal of artistic integrity. Modern Art is deeply moving, for its
faith in art as well as its rogues' gallery of all-too-human characters."
-- Kelly Cherry -- Seattle Times
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