To read or not to read- Fiction about the Art World


Unpredictable and humorous, take  a peek behind the scenes of the  New York art world in this fictional tale. The author, an avid art collector, has included 22 colour reproductions of artworks, all cited the narrative. 








Read the opening paragraphs of this book, then you decide whether to read or not to read the rest of the book!


I am tired, so very tired of thinking about Lacey Yeager, yet I worry that unless I write her story down, and see it bound and tidy on my bookshelf, I will be unable to ever write about anything else.

 My last name is Franks. Once in college, Lacey grabbed my wallet and read my drivers licence aloud, discovering that my forenames are Daniel Chester French, after the sculptor who created the Abraham Lincoln Memorial. I am from Stocbridge, Massachussetts, where Daniel Chester French lived and worked, and my parents, being pariochal Americans, didn't realise that the name Daniel Chester French Franks read funny. Lacey told me she was related to the arts by blood, too, but declined to tell me the full story, saying "Too long. Later I'll tell you French fries."  We were twenty.

I left Stockbridge, a town set under the glow of its even more famous citizen, the painter of glad America, Norman Rockwell. It is a town that revels in art, although uncomplicated art, not the kind that is taught in educational institutions after high school. My goal, once I discovered that my artistic aspirations were not accompanied by artistic talent, was to learn to write about art with effortless clarity. This is not as easy as it sounds: whenever I attempted it, I found myself in a convoluted rhetorical tangle from which there was no exit.




To keep reading this book, you can request it from the Library!