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Lee & Elaine (Semiotext
When Ann's childhood friend Hannah Wilke dies and is buried in Green River, the famous East Hampton cemetery which contains the graves of Abstract Expessionist painters Jackson Pollack, Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Frank O'Hara, and Stuart Davis, Ann seeks out the graveyard. She becomes obsessed with the graves of women artists, mostly wives of more famous men, and she imagines that Lee and Elaine get a second chance and come back as lesbians.
Such speculation is never innocent and the narrator finds that her own life is turned upside down as she falls in love with a woman student and abandons the security of her marital Soho loft. The invasive powers of fiction are brilliantly demonstrated in this wryly funny and mordant book about romance, life, death, and starting over.
A diehard New Yorker, Ann Rower is the author of If You're a Girl (Native Agents) and Armed Response (Serpent's Tail) which is her celebration of the death of her uncle Leo Robin, who wrote "Thanks for the Memory" and "Diamonds are A Girl's Best Friend" and many other songs. She is currently living in Bisbee, Arizona and thinking of teaching a course on "Writing on Horseback" at the local college.
Also Available by Ann Rower
Armed Response
TP $12.99, 1-85242-415-X CUSA
Such speculation is never innocent and the narrator finds that her own life is turned upside down as she falls in love with a woman student and abandons the security of her marital Soho loft. The invasive powers of fiction are brilliantly demonstrated in this wryly funny and mordant book about romance, life, death, and starting over.
A diehard New Yorker, Ann Rower is the author of If You're a Girl (Native Agents) and Armed Response (Serpent's Tail) which is her celebration of the death of her uncle Leo Robin, who wrote "Thanks for the Memory" and "Diamonds are A Girl's Best Friend" and many other songs. She is currently living in Bisbee, Arizona and thinking of teaching a course on "Writing on Horseback" at the local college.
Also Available by Ann Rower
Armed Response
TP $12.99, 1-85242-415-X CUSA
280 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2002
About the author
Ann Rower
4 books12 followersA die-hard New Yorker, Ann Rower has always lived, worked, and written in and around the city. She is the author of If You're a Girl, a collection of short stories; and Armed Response and Lee & Elaine, both novels. Rower has contributed to periodicals such as BOMB, Journal of Contemporary Fiction, and High Risk 2. She has also worked for the innovative Wooster theatre group and other performance groups.
Rower taught writing for decades at the School of Visual Arts. For her work, she received several awards and honors. Rower got a Jules and Avery Hopwood Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, Gary Carey Award from the Humanities and Sciences Department at the School of Visual Arts.
Rower taught writing for decades at the School of Visual Arts. For her work, she received several awards and honors. Rower got a Jules and Avery Hopwood Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, Gary Carey Award from the Humanities and Sciences Department at the School of Visual Arts.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 26, 2026
Would give 3.5. It’s definitely a different type of narrative, kind of like the fictional character in the books story towards finishing this fiction book I’m reading. Enjoyed the glimpse at the end into the imaginary friendship between Elaine de Kooning and Lee Krasner.
July 4, 2026
a solid 2.5 for me. i wanted to like this more than i did. pretty plotless fiction with a difficult narrator, which I’m usually into, but was ultimately disappointing
June 27, 2026
I've struggled with eating this book. I've changed a couple of times, which I think speaks volumes.
Predecessor of the new generation of autofictional writers, Ann Rower was writing this in the early 00s. The style might or might not be my favourite, but it is undeniable that Rower is exploring themes that are crucial not only for queer literature, feminist literature and life writing, but also for the whole brand of experimental writing of the self and the studies around the intersections between auto/biographical and auto/theoretical. In this, micro histories, oral histories, memoir, biography, fabulation, fiction and non fiction blend and refuse to be domesticated and pigeonholed. Surely not a coincidence that it was published by Semiotexte, Chris Kraus' and Silvère Lotringer's publishing endeavour, that so brilliantly and acutely embraced the ironic and non ironic hybridisation of all things literary.
However, I don't think it ever really strikes the balance between the auto and the biographical. On the one hand, it's really clever in unapologetically showing the process of writing in a non conventional anti intellectualism that doesn't impoverish the narrative, on the contrary it makes it more effective. On the other hand, it never centres on the writing itself, and the book on Lee & Elaine appears much more as an afterthought, an escamotage than the core of the work. Which is a pity, because there's so much that could have been written and done that it feels quite uneven and uncooked for a novel that ambitious.
"Lee & Elaine" undoubtedly remains a poignant predecessor to a lot of contemporary autofictional works, and it does truly shine in several passages. But in hindsight I think that - although reading it in 2002 would have probably rocked my world - reading it now left me quite unimpressed.
Predecessor of the new generation of autofictional writers, Ann Rower was writing this in the early 00s. The style might or might not be my favourite, but it is undeniable that Rower is exploring themes that are crucial not only for queer literature, feminist literature and life writing, but also for the whole brand of experimental writing of the self and the studies around the intersections between auto/biographical and auto/theoretical. In this, micro histories, oral histories, memoir, biography, fabulation, fiction and non fiction blend and refuse to be domesticated and pigeonholed. Surely not a coincidence that it was published by Semiotexte, Chris Kraus' and Silvère Lotringer's publishing endeavour, that so brilliantly and acutely embraced the ironic and non ironic hybridisation of all things literary.
However, I don't think it ever really strikes the balance between the auto and the biographical. On the one hand, it's really clever in unapologetically showing the process of writing in a non conventional anti intellectualism that doesn't impoverish the narrative, on the contrary it makes it more effective. On the other hand, it never centres on the writing itself, and the book on Lee & Elaine appears much more as an afterthought, an escamotage than the core of the work. Which is a pity, because there's so much that could have been written and done that it feels quite uneven and uncooked for a novel that ambitious.
"Lee & Elaine" undoubtedly remains a poignant predecessor to a lot of contemporary autofictional works, and it does truly shine in several passages. But in hindsight I think that - although reading it in 2002 would have probably rocked my world - reading it now left me quite unimpressed.
May 13, 2026
Picked this up on a whim on a visit to our favorite bookstore in Knoxville (shoutout to Union Ave for supplying all the hidden gems). Would have given the first half of this book 2-3 stars, but the second half really swept me off my feet.
To put it plainly, this book is a midlife exploration of sexuality facilitated by primary source research into the lives of two dead artists to whom the narrator has developed a parasocial relationship. A little exposition-heavy, but I really enjoyed it on the whole.
To put it plainly, this book is a midlife exploration of sexuality facilitated by primary source research into the lives of two dead artists to whom the narrator has developed a parasocial relationship. A little exposition-heavy, but I really enjoyed it on the whole.
April 27, 2026
i really liked this! it’s definitely not for everyone, but i love being stuck in ann’s head. also props for getting me into a piece of art history i knew nothing about.
June 18, 2026
enjoyable
June 16, 2015
Enjoyable!
was this book an autobiography somehow? (i guess not but however...)
it read like a romance of Jean-Luc Godard, but in a story frame of La Notte by Antonioni
was this book an autobiography somehow? (i guess not but however...)
it read like a romance of Jean-Luc Godard, but in a story frame of La Notte by Antonioni
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July 23, 2017It is kind of un-star-able.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews