So Much Blue
A Novel
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4.4 • 37 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A new high point for a master novelist, an emotionally charged reckoning with art, marriage, and the past
Kevin Pace is working on a painting that he won’t allow anyone to see: not his children; not his best friend, Richard; not even his wife, Linda. The painting is a canvas of twelve feet by twenty-one feet (and three inches) that is covered entirely in shades of blue. It may be his masterpiece or it may not; he doesn’t know or, more accurately, doesn’t care.
What Kevin does care about are the events of the past. Ten years ago he had an affair with a young watercolorist in Paris. Kevin relates this event with a dispassionate air, even a bit of puzzlement. It’s not clear to him why he had the affair, but he can’t let it go. In the more distant past of the late seventies, Kevin and Richard traveled to El Salvador on the verge of war to retrieve Richard’s drug-dealing brother, who had gone missing without explanation. As the events of the past intersect with the present, Kevin struggles to justify the sacrifices he’s made for his art and the secrets he’s kept from his wife.
So Much Blue features Percival Everett at his best, and his deadpan humor and insightful commentary about the artistic life culminate in a brilliantly readable new novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Art, friendship, family, and sex all jostle for priority of focus in the prolific Everett's contemplative new novel. The plot doesn't so much unfold or tighten but rather follows the idiosyncratic thoughts of its protagonist, a renowned painter named Kevin Pace. Several chapters open with philosophical statements "I suppose every alcoholic desires to regard himself as simply a harmless drunk." Taking his time, Kevin unspools a story from 30 years ago, another a decade old, and gauges their impact on the present. These plotlines are woven in chapters variously titled "1979," "Paris," and "House." In "1979," when he's 24, Kevin and his close friend Richard take a potentially dangerous trip to El Salvador to find Richard's missing brother, Tad. It doesn't take long for them to stumble into a dangerous situation involving soldiers with M16s. The "Paris" plot charts Kevin's romance with the alluring Victoire, with Richard playing a minor role. And in "House," Kevin is working on a painting, perhaps a masterwork "a painting has many surfaces," he proclaims but refuses to show it to his family, or anyone else for that matter. The novel's version of the three ages of man adds yet another level to Everett's intellectually provocative work.
Customer Reviews
Perfect
It carries you through time and the connections we hold with one another, and all we keep out of view.
Love, desire and the murk between. Masterful!