Arrogance - by Joanna Scott (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In Joanna Scott's breakthrough novel Arrogance, the Austrian artist Egon Schiele comes to prismatic life in a narrative that defies convention, history, and identity. A self-professed genius and student of August Klimt, Scott's Schiele repeatedly challenges the boundaries of early twentieth-century Europe. Thrown in jail on charges of immorality, Schiele's Mephistophelean reputation only grows in stature until at the age of twenty-eight, the artist dies in the Great Flu Pandemic. Told from a crosscurrent of voices, viewpoints and times, this stunning novel won Scott a nomination for the 1991 PEN/Faulkner Award.

Review Quotes

"A haunting success...a dazzling literary performance." --The Washington Post

"Joanna Scott's literary material...are deployed in sensuous, provocative patterns. They resound with rich experiences and intriguing perceptions." --The New York Times Book Review

"Arrogance, beyond the sheer brilliance of Scott's handling of disparate voices, changing milieus and tangled dates... manages to portray with skill and candor the imaginations, desires, and fears of people whose stories are as timely and important as today's headlines." --San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author

Joanna Scott is the author of several books of fiction, including the novels Tourmaline and The Manikin. She is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Lannan Award, and lives with her family in Rochester, New York.