The Great Man - by Kate Christensen (Paperback)

About the Book

Christensen pens a scintillating comedy of life among the avant-garde--of theuntidy truths, needy egos, and jostling for position behind the glossy facadeof artistic greatness--in this PEN Faulkner Award-winning story of a New YorkCity painter living in the heroic generation of the 1940s and 1950s.

Book Synopsis

National Bestseller and Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

Oscar Feldman, the renowned figurative painter, has passed away. As his obituary notes, Oscar is survived by his wife, Abigail, their son, Ethan, and his sister, the well-known abstract painter Maxine Feldman. What the obituary does not note, however, is that Oscar is also survived by his longtime mistress, Teddy St. Cloud, and their daughters.

As two biographers interview the women in an attempt to set the record straight, the open secret of his affair reaches a boiling point and a devastating skeleton threatens to come to light. From the acclaimed author of The Epicure's Lament, a scintillating novel of secrets, love, and legacy in the New York art world.

"Mischievous...funny, astute...As unexpectedly generous as it is entertaining.... Christensen is a witty observer of the art universe." --The New York Times

Review Quotes

"The Great Man is as unexpectedly generous as it is entertaining. . . . Wise and expansive. . . . Christensen is a witty observer of the art universe." --The New York Times "Christensen's writing is clear-eyed, muscular, bitingly funny, and supremely caustic about the niceties of social relations, contemporary American culture, and sexual politics." --O, The Oprah Magazine "These characters are wonderfully developed and break the stereotype of the aging female protagonist. Christensen . . . boldly has raised the bar." --USA Today "Nimble, witty and discerning, Kate Christensen is single-handedly reinvigorating the comedy of manners with her smart and disemboweling novels of misanthropes, cultural and aesthetic divides, private angst, social ambition and appetites run amok." --Chicago Tribune

About the Author

KATE CHRISTENSEN is the author of six previous novels, most recently The Astral. The Great Man won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award. She has published reviews and essays in numerous publications, most recently the New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, O, Elle, and Gilt Taste. She writes an occasional drinks column for The Wall Street Journal called "With a Twist." Her blog can be accessed at: http: //katechristensen.wordpress.com. She lives in Portland, Maine.