Art on Fire

Young, wild, and subversive artist Francesca deSilva lived hard and died young in a tragic fire that also destroyed most of her art. Growing up in the shadow of her brilliant sister Isabella, Francesca was always second best. Overlooked by her parents, she turned to her grandmother, whose adoration shriveled to rejection when Francesca was caught in bed with the chess genius Lisa Sinsong on her eighteenth birthday. Francesca fled home and began her bohemian life in a ramshackle cabin working at the local flea market. Then she began to paint. To her confusion—and even dismay—she became an overnight sensation, acclaimed as the founding mother of “pseudo-realism.” Until the fateful night she returned home to put the past to rest. Art on Fire is the pseudo-biography of Francesca’s short but colorful life, interspersed with essays on her paintings by critics, academics, and psychologists. These razor-sharp satires on art, lesbian life, and the academic world, puncture pretentiousness with every paragraph.