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Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays
Here is a dazzling collection from Joan Acocella, one of our most admired cultural thirty-one essays that consider the life and work of some of the most influential artists of our time (and two Joan of Arc and Mary Magdalene). Acocella writes about Primo Levi, Holocaust survivor and chemist, who wrote the classic memoir, Survival in Auschwitz ; M.F.K. Fisher who, numb with grief over her husband’s suicide, dictated the witty and classic How to Cook a Wolf ; and many other subjects, including Dorothy Parker, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Saul Bellow. Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints is indispensable reading on the making of art—and the courage, perseverance, and, sometimes, dumb luck that it requires.
540 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
54 people are currently reading
906 people want to read
About the author
Joan Acocella
23 books23 followersJoan B. Acocella was an American journalist who served as a dance and book critic for The New Yorker.
Acocella received her B.A. in English in 1966 from the University of California, Berkeley. She earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature at Rutgers University in 1984 with a thesis on the Ballets Russes. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993. Acocella was a 2012 Holtzbrinck Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.
Acocella has served as the senior critic and reviews editor for Dance Magazine and New York dance critic for the Financial Times. Her writing also appears regularly in the New York Review of Books. She began writing for The New Yorker in 1992 and was appointed dance critic in 1998.
Her New Yorker article "Cather and the Academy", which appeared in the November 27, 1995 issue, received a Front Page Award from the Newswomen’s Club of New York and was included in the “Best American Essays” anthology of 1996. She expanded the essay into Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism. (2004).
Acocella received her B.A. in English in 1966 from the University of California, Berkeley. She earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature at Rutgers University in 1984 with a thesis on the Ballets Russes. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993. Acocella was a 2012 Holtzbrinck Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.
Acocella has served as the senior critic and reviews editor for Dance Magazine and New York dance critic for the Financial Times. Her writing also appears regularly in the New York Review of Books. She began writing for The New Yorker in 1992 and was appointed dance critic in 1998.
Her New Yorker article "Cather and the Academy", which appeared in the November 27, 1995 issue, received a Front Page Award from the Newswomen’s Club of New York and was included in the “Best American Essays” anthology of 1996. She expanded the essay into Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism. (2004).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
November 10, 2025
Perfections of the profile. The best of them strange short stories, fables of “the madness of art.”
October 7, 2009
One gets the sense, when reading an art critic like Robert Hughes, that the author most enjoyed writing pieces about artwork enjoyed the least. Indeed, the more disdainful the work, the more the critic gets to flex his/her acerbic wit. These pieces can be enjoyable to read at first, but eventually the relentless negativity begins to wear a bit. As such, it’s refreshing to read a book like Acocella’s Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints – a collection of her essays from the New Yorker. The source of each piece is clearly Acocella’s love of each artist – the essay is an attempt to unpack and explicated that affection. Even in the face of biographical details that damn her subjects, Acocella strains to maintain equanimity.
Beyond the tone of the book, though, there are two additional aspects that make it extraordinary. The first is the overarching theme of the book. In the introductory essay, Acocella struggles to figure out what is the unifying theme of these thirty pieces, and what she settles on is rote perseverance. No discipline has inspired the same level of mythologizing as the arts, and much of it rather destructive for practicing artists (my own path to becoming an artist has been a constant struggle to overcome many of those myths) – yet Acocella’s works, taken as a whole, maintain that the primary trait of the artists is the banal day-to-day persistence, often in the face of near-relentless failures.
The second additional joy of the book is Acocella’s enthusiasm for lesser-known artists. In this she is more with authors than with dancers: one need not be a specialist in dance to know of Martha Graham or Baryshnikov. This is not to say that her dance pieces aren’t wonderful, but they tend not to mine obscurity the same way. I left the book with a vastly expanded reading list, including authors such as Marguerite Yourcenar. It’s perhaps the greatest sign Acocella’s success that her enthusiasm flows so unrestricted into the reader.
Beyond the tone of the book, though, there are two additional aspects that make it extraordinary. The first is the overarching theme of the book. In the introductory essay, Acocella struggles to figure out what is the unifying theme of these thirty pieces, and what she settles on is rote perseverance. No discipline has inspired the same level of mythologizing as the arts, and much of it rather destructive for practicing artists (my own path to becoming an artist has been a constant struggle to overcome many of those myths) – yet Acocella’s works, taken as a whole, maintain that the primary trait of the artists is the banal day-to-day persistence, often in the face of near-relentless failures.
The second additional joy of the book is Acocella’s enthusiasm for lesser-known artists. In this she is more with authors than with dancers: one need not be a specialist in dance to know of Martha Graham or Baryshnikov. This is not to say that her dance pieces aren’t wonderful, but they tend not to mine obscurity the same way. I left the book with a vastly expanded reading list, including authors such as Marguerite Yourcenar. It’s perhaps the greatest sign Acocella’s success that her enthusiasm flows so unrestricted into the reader.
July 12, 2009
"Those who lament the dissolution of the American family-kids with no way to get to Girl Scouts, aging parents put into nursing homes-should remember what it was that kept the American family together: women's blood."
Joan Acocella is a treasure. She's one of the best writers I've had the pleasure of reading, and she's one of those wonderful critics who can critique something instead of just criticizing it, who actually wants to like what she's writing about. Her pieces on dance made me want to run out and see more of that particular art form, and her essays made me want to read more of the authors she profiled (and I will--I picked up an MFK Fisher book today).
Apart from the two saint essays and an essay on writer's block, this book collects essays, mainly on writers, a few choreographers & dancers, and a smattering of other figures. Only half of the essays are about women, but the dangers love can pose to the development and continued force of female genius is touched on several times throughout the book. It's not a women's studies book, though; I'd recommend this to anyone with a certain degree of curiosity about the arts, or anyone who enjoys reading well-written prose. Acocella writes literary criticism about works of literary criticism here, and she manages to make it damn fun.
Joan Acocella is a treasure. She's one of the best writers I've had the pleasure of reading, and she's one of those wonderful critics who can critique something instead of just criticizing it, who actually wants to like what she's writing about. Her pieces on dance made me want to run out and see more of that particular art form, and her essays made me want to read more of the authors she profiled (and I will--I picked up an MFK Fisher book today).
Apart from the two saint essays and an essay on writer's block, this book collects essays, mainly on writers, a few choreographers & dancers, and a smattering of other figures. Only half of the essays are about women, but the dangers love can pose to the development and continued force of female genius is touched on several times throughout the book. It's not a women's studies book, though; I'd recommend this to anyone with a certain degree of curiosity about the arts, or anyone who enjoys reading well-written prose. Acocella writes literary criticism about works of literary criticism here, and she manages to make it damn fun.
December 22, 2008
There are few things more rewarding than reading a book written by an author who is more than just an author but is an author with a very refined, perceptible appreciation for written language. Acocella crafts most of her phrases in service of The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. I am a sucker for both of these publications. Acocella's specialty is writing about the world of dance and the elaborate experience of tortured genius. Like myself, she is fascinated with the underlying stories of our society's admired and adored in that she seeks not to heighten worship for worship's sake. Rather, Acocella is interested in making our world's most admired and adored their most human and accessible.
January 22, 2022
Hard to tell where Acocella's sympathies lie with her chosen subjects - she's good at remaining impartial. But one particular essay stood out as being rather sympathetic in nature, that of Simone de Beauvoir. I still couldn't help feeling sorry for Miss de Beauvoir and her honorable but misguided intentions. Overall, and interesting read into the great minds of our contemporary age on the subjects of creativity, madness, compulsion and life in general.
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April 18, 2019An enjoyable set of critical essays, all or most of which appeared in The New Yorker. While I looked forward most to the dance essays (for which Acocella is known,) I found the essays on the two “saints” (Mary Magdalene and Joan of Arc) to be the most original.
February 17, 2008
I especially liked the new angles on Louise Bourgeois,
my introduction to Primo Levi and Joseph Roth, the bits
about women supporters of men artists, and the piece
on writer's block. Coleridge, said to be one of the first
known cases, had a friend tell him to just get over it.
"Oh, sure!" said Coleridge, but in more meaured words:
"Go, bid a man paralytic in both arms to rub them briskly
together and that will cure him. Alas! (he would reply)
that I cannot move my arms is my complaint!"
my introduction to Primo Levi and Joseph Roth, the bits
about women supporters of men artists, and the piece
on writer's block. Coleridge, said to be one of the first
known cases, had a friend tell him to just get over it.
"Oh, sure!" said Coleridge, but in more meaured words:
"Go, bid a man paralytic in both arms to rub them briskly
together and that will cure him. Alas! (he would reply)
that I cannot move my arms is my complaint!"
April 14, 2008
While intelligence and talent may exist, they are useless, unimportant constructs of abject snobbery. Wonder and persistence are the driving qualities of success, generally achieved when the artist is awakened within a person. Acocella examines the artist's ability to endure despite impediments and torment of soul. In doing so, she provides a reasonably entertaining guide to the modern/contemporary artist.
July 15, 2009
Loved reading this collection of essays on artists - Acocella writes of authors, sculptures, and (primarily) those connected to the NY dance scene (oh yes, and those two saints: the Magdalene and Joan). I've never been to the ballet, but I would like to now... I've tracked down a copy of Yourcenar's "Memoirs of Hadrian" to read next (thank goodness Adam is at the U - it doesn't exist in the Saint Paul or Ramsey County library systems).
February 1, 2008
The perfect Christmas gift from my brother. An intimate look at larger-than-life artists, revealing their quirks, faults, and gifts to the world.
January 2, 2010
Acocella is one of my favorite essayists in The New Yorker. These short articles on cultural figures are wonderful capsule portraits of fascinating artists.
December 1, 2018
An interesting collection of biopics of writers dancers and choreographers, plus two saints. The essays are written in a way that makes you want to know more about the artist and to seek out their work. Although I didn't agree with the focus and angle of every essay, it is full of fascinating information about the artists and offers a dive into the work and lives of both well known and obscure artists.
October 1, 2019
I read this ages ago and forgot I had until it came up in conversation recently. Dammit, can't find the book!--so many things lost in a move years ago--but a necessary read for anyone considering a life in the arts. I remember it gave me hope because I knew I wasn't brilliant, but I had tenacity. So much of art-making is about resilience, weathering disappointment, sticking around to get better. This book showed me that.
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August 11, 2023Fabulous beyond belief. If I could give this 100 stars, I would. To get to spend even a minute inside the brilliant brain of Acocella as she observes and discusses artists at work is a treat beyond belief. I cannot wait to revisit these essays. Oh, to look at the world with Joan's eyes!!
January 25, 2025
This book took me a while to get into. I’m not hugely into the arts, meaning I don’t know much but I learned a lot reading these essays. The book was loaned to me by a neighbor and I’m glad I read it, something different for me.
September 18, 2018
Cultural criticism/biography/anecdote/history
August 7, 2020
Engaging writing style, some really interesting essays on subjects I had no understand of previously. Has helped me grow my 'to read' list massively.
August 26, 2008
The thirty-one essays presented here are drawn from Joan Acocella’s work over the last fifteen years, most though not all of them first appearing in The New Yorker. The twenty-eight artists include writers of all genres, as well as choreographers and dancers, and the two saints are Mary Magdalene and Joan of Arc. There is an additional essay - ‘Blocked’ – which deals with the dreaded phenomenon of writer’s block, along with its frequent companion, as both temporary cure and catalyst – alcoholism. A unifying theme is that of ‘difficulty, hardship’ – but not, stresses Acocella, in the usual sense of unhappy childhoods leading to some form of artistic resolution. Instead, she is concerned with ‘the pain that came with the art-making, interfering with it, and how the artist dealt with this.’ She points out that it is not talent alone that makes for a sustained artistic career – brilliance needs to be combined with ‘more homely virtues: patience, resilience, courage.’
Acocella is an enemy of both cliché and sentimentality; the latter in particular is always a dirty word for her, and the lack of it – a quality which she admires in, for instance, the writing of Primo Levi – is always likely to draw forth praise. She also exhibits a mature, matter-of-fact feminism. By and large, she seems to suggest, there is no need to bang on about it; she is understanding of, for example, Simone de Beauvoir in her inability to break away from, or even fully comprehend, the subservient role she played in relation to Jean-Paul Sartre. ‘Beauvoir’s critics should read some history books,’ she remarks. But on occasion a righteous anger will nevertheless erupt, as in the essay on the writer M.F.K. Fisher, who wrote nothing for twelve years while living as her father's housekeeper: 'Those who lament the dissolution of the American family - kids with no way to get to Girl Scouts, aging parents put into nursing homes - should remember what it was that kept the American family together: women's blood.'
Acocella believes that art matters. She cares about good books as 'sources of wisdom and delight', and it is no accident that her essay on the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov – ‘The Soloist’ - should be the most moving in the collection. ‘In him,’ she writes, ‘the hidden meaning of ballet, and of classicism – that experience has order, that life can be understood – is clearer than in any other dancer on the stage today.’ This essay, written in 1998, tells of Baryshnikov’s return to his home town of Riga in Latvia, twenty-four years after his defection to the West. He gives a transcendent performance and the usually reserved Latvian audience, including the president of the republic, stand and cheer. This performance as witnessed and related by Acocella seems to represent not only a personal homecoming, but the rejoining of a fractured Europe, and because Acocella does not ‘do’ sentimentality, this rare release of emotion is particularly powerful.
By the end of Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints one certainly feels better educated as well as vastly entertained. I loved her comment on Carole Angier’s biography of Primo Levi (‘As for his life, the position she takes is roughly that of a psychotherapist of the seventies. She's okay. We're okay. Why wasn't he okay?') as well as her description of Cecil B. De Mille’s film about Joan of Arc: 'The movie fairly pullulates with people running around in Pied Piper outfits.'
Written by Virginia Rounding for The NYLS Book Review. All rights reserved.
Acocella is an enemy of both cliché and sentimentality; the latter in particular is always a dirty word for her, and the lack of it – a quality which she admires in, for instance, the writing of Primo Levi – is always likely to draw forth praise. She also exhibits a mature, matter-of-fact feminism. By and large, she seems to suggest, there is no need to bang on about it; she is understanding of, for example, Simone de Beauvoir in her inability to break away from, or even fully comprehend, the subservient role she played in relation to Jean-Paul Sartre. ‘Beauvoir’s critics should read some history books,’ she remarks. But on occasion a righteous anger will nevertheless erupt, as in the essay on the writer M.F.K. Fisher, who wrote nothing for twelve years while living as her father's housekeeper: 'Those who lament the dissolution of the American family - kids with no way to get to Girl Scouts, aging parents put into nursing homes - should remember what it was that kept the American family together: women's blood.'
Acocella believes that art matters. She cares about good books as 'sources of wisdom and delight', and it is no accident that her essay on the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov – ‘The Soloist’ - should be the most moving in the collection. ‘In him,’ she writes, ‘the hidden meaning of ballet, and of classicism – that experience has order, that life can be understood – is clearer than in any other dancer on the stage today.’ This essay, written in 1998, tells of Baryshnikov’s return to his home town of Riga in Latvia, twenty-four years after his defection to the West. He gives a transcendent performance and the usually reserved Latvian audience, including the president of the republic, stand and cheer. This performance as witnessed and related by Acocella seems to represent not only a personal homecoming, but the rejoining of a fractured Europe, and because Acocella does not ‘do’ sentimentality, this rare release of emotion is particularly powerful.
By the end of Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints one certainly feels better educated as well as vastly entertained. I loved her comment on Carole Angier’s biography of Primo Levi (‘As for his life, the position she takes is roughly that of a psychotherapist of the seventies. She's okay. We're okay. Why wasn't he okay?') as well as her description of Cecil B. De Mille’s film about Joan of Arc: 'The movie fairly pullulates with people running around in Pied Piper outfits.'
Written by Virginia Rounding for The NYLS Book Review. All rights reserved.
June 26, 2011
joan acocella is probably my 3rd favorite new yorker writer (having a ranking for new yorker writers is probably a serious sign you need a life),so i enjoyed this book as much as expected. A lot of the articles deal with lesser-known writers, so i came away with a ton of new titles to add to my reading list. Plus there are plenty of hilarious anecdotes. Bob Fosse pacing around his hotel room holding a cheap Mexican Jesus statue and screaming "why won't you help me?" at it is an image i will cherish forever. I devoured it all at once but you could also dip into it on weeks when the new yorker is pretty slight and you're like "no malcolm gladwell, i'm actually not interested in reading about some random statistics paradox, thankyouverymuch."
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May 4, 2008 It was a great pleasure to spend some hours in the company, so to speak, of such a mind as Joan Accocella's. What makes her such a great critic I think is not only her sensitive perceptions but the openness of her mind to learn new things and reconsider what she had thought of as certainties.
I have read her in "New Yorker" for years and was aware she was a kindred soul. What I didn't expect was that I would be making a list of twenty other books I am now eager to take up after reading what JA had to say about them.
I have read her in "New Yorker" for years and was aware she was a kindred soul. What I didn't expect was that I would be making a list of twenty other books I am now eager to take up after reading what JA had to say about them.
January 17, 2010
This book is, for the most part, a selective but somehow comprehensive-seeming survey of the lively arts in the 20th century as told through Acocella's incredibly knowledgeable, perceptive, erudite yet down-to-earth profiles (most originally published in The New Yorker) of those who made, re-made, and contributed to those arts. It will introduce you to artists (dancers, poets, novelists, critics) you haven't heard of and energize you into seeking out their work, and it will clarify and expand your perceptions of the artists you have heard of. A very pleasurable and worthwhile read.
January 22, 2014
collected essays from a master cultural critic and writer. i know her from her dance articles for the new yorker among other publications. she is exceedingly knowledgeable in non-dance areas, hence the label 'cultural critic.' sharp, eagle-eyed, interested in the artistic process as much as the product, the essays i have read thus far have proved enlightening and superbly written. i expect the rest will follow.
November 2, 2014
A fascinating collection of essays on the struggles endured by artists while creating works of varying genius. Acocella shines a light on several authors who have been abandoned by modern readers, bringing their literary triumphs and personal tribulations to the forefront once again.
"To make a career – you must have, with brilliance, a number of less glamorous virtues, for example, patience, resilience, and courage." (13)
"To make a career – you must have, with brilliance, a number of less glamorous virtues, for example, patience, resilience, and courage." (13)
June 21, 2016
Best read in small doses, this book is a collection of New Yorker essays about both well-known and obscure artists and serves to reintroduce some important figures to American readers. For readers who enjoy Joseph Roth ("The Radetzky March"), Stefan Zweig ("Beware of Pity"), Hilary Mantel (more well-known now that "Wolf Hall" was recently on PBS), the great culinary writings of M.F.K. Fisher, Sybille Bedford and others, there are some real gems here.
July 22, 2008
joan acocella as dance critic for the new yorker is a mark morris fan- so i am an ardent reader of her work.
from the initial essay, "blocked" - all about what one does when the juice doesn't run, to her essay on frank o'hara- i find her perspectives uniquely additive to the already known canyons of criticism. quite a stretch coming from my cynical anti-critic corner.
from the initial essay, "blocked" - all about what one does when the juice doesn't run, to her essay on frank o'hara- i find her perspectives uniquely additive to the already known canyons of criticism. quite a stretch coming from my cynical anti-critic corner.
March 18, 2010
REALLY learned a lot from this book - from writers (Frank O'Hara, Saul Bellow) to dancers (Fosse, Jerome Robbins, Martha Graham) to, yes, 2 saints (Mary Madgalene and Joan of Arc) - I just feel SMARTER having made it through this (I did "skim" a couple of the essays) - she's a really good writer, most of these were from the New Yorker.
January 6, 2011
The Frank O'Hara essay was one of the most exhilarating pieces of non-fiction I've ever read. Joan Acocella writes with amazing insight- sometimes of the literary kind, and sometimes, as my girlfriend said, of the "Jewish Grandmother" kind. Though she picks some great subjects- Mary Magdalene, Simone de Beauvoir- I'm pretty sure this woman could make anyone interesting.
May 27, 2016
It was such a pleasure to settle down with this book at the end of each day and read about one of the artists (or saints). Acocella is a brilliant writer who makes any subject interesting. Including dance! I don't normally pay attention to it, but she brought dance and dancers to life for me. More, please!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews