The Big Why
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
Funny, surprising, and thoroughly honest, Michael Winter’s fictional memoir about the famed American artist Rockwell Kent bares all, now with a new introduction by award-winning author of The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt.
In 1914, the American artist Rockwell Kent escapes his bustling life in New York City for the quaint, rural town of Brigus, Newfoundland. He has been drawn north by the picturesque landscape of the Atlantic, seeking a simpler, quieter life. Always fascinated and inspired by cold climates, Kent imagines his new home to be a utopia and the perfect place to work on his art and marriage.
Notorious for his flighty relationships with various women and his radical, socialist thinking, the artist’s beliefs and way of life run drastically against those of the community. And on the cusp of the First World War, tensions and suspicions run high; a newcomer could be anyone, including a German spy.
In this fictionalized memoir, Winter explores the life of an artist who was not fully understood or accepted in his time and place. Funny, surprising, and thoroughly honest about our desires and contradictions, The Big Why bares all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This odd bird of a lucidly written biographical novel about 20th-century American painter Rockwell Kent is not about art. Other than the titles of a few paintings, and the studio where he retreats to escape his family and the world, there is little discussion of Kent's work. Instead, this is the story of Kent and his family's sojourn in Brigus, Newfoundland, where they flee the inquiring eyes of New York for some rural peace. But rather than affording privacy, the small town greets him first with fascination, then scorn, and then, with the arrival of WWI and the socialist painter's lack of patriotic zeal unfounded fear. Winter expertly outlines his protagonist's psychological nuances, but offers minimal indication of what Kent's art means to him or the role it plays in his life. The author (Creaking in Their Skins) is on steadier ground with dialogue, which is uniformly trenchant and humorous. Kent's discussions with his friend and mentor, Gerald, take on the glow of a modern Socratic dialogue or an intellectual improv routine, and Kent's wife, Kathleen, comes vividly to life. Winter gives us a flesh-and-blood Rockwell Kent the man, but does not do the same for Kent the artist.
