The Long Corner

by Alexander Maksik

A bold novel about ambition, grief, creativity, beauty, and existential emptiness that retraces the arc of American life and culture in the first decades of the 21st century.

It is early 2017 in New York City, Donald Trump is President, and Solomon Fields, a young Jewish journalist-turned-advertising hack, finds himself disillusioned by the hollowness and conformity of American life and language. Once brimming with dreams and ideals instilled in him by his eternally bohemian grandmother, a survivor of the Holocaust who has dedicated her life to passion and pleasure, Sol now finds the senseless jargon he produces at work seeping into all aspects of the world around him—and most disturbingly, into the art that his beloved grandmother taught him to revere.

A personal tragedy drives Sol to leave New York and accept an invitation to The Coded Garden, an artists’ colony on a tropical island, whose mysterious patron, Sebastian Light, seems to offer the very escape Sol desperately needs. But the longer he remains in the Garden, the more Light comes to resemble Trump himself, and the games he plays with Sol become more dangerous. Slowly lines begin to blur—between reality and performance, sincerity and manipulation, art and life, beauty and emptiness—until Sol finds that he must question everything: his past, his convictions, and his very sanity.

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook

280 pages, Hardcover

First published May 17, 2022

About the author

Alexander Maksik is the author of four novels: You Deserve Nothing, a New York Times and IndieBound bestseller; A Marker to Measure Drift, which was a New York Times Notable Book, as well as a finalist for the William Saroyan Prize and Le Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger; Shelter in Place, named one of the best books of the year by the Guardian and the San Francisco Chronicle and The Long Corner, which will be published in 2022.

Maksik’s writing has appeared in many publications including Harper’s, The New Yorker, Tin House, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Sewanee Review, Harvard Review, New York Times Book Review, Condé Nast Traveler (where for several years he was a contributing editor) and The Atlantic, and has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and the Andrew Lytle Prize, as well as fellowships from the Truman Capote Literary Trust and the Corporation of Yaddo.

Along with French novelist Colombe Schneck, he is the co-artistic director of the Can Cab Literary Residence in Catalonia, Spain.

Reviews

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Former journalist, ad man, and stalled writer, Solomon Fields, was raised by a secular Jewish Marxist mother, Charlotte, (now a fanatic pro-Israel advocate) and most deeply influenced by his bohemian baba (grandmother), Karolina Klein, who survived the Holocaust and went on to live a life of hedonistic wildness. She maintained that art is “turning nothing at all into something beautiful,” and hammered artists who sold out. Leaving the house to run an errand one day, Sol’s father never came back. Sol’s mother and grandmother never got along, so he was raised among constant conflict. We learn a bit of background in the opening pages; at this time, Sol was in his early thirties and fed up with his shallow, materialistic wife and life, including his own bad attitude. He got an in-person invitation to join an artist’s colony, The Coded Garden, far away from home. He accepted it, primarily because his life was currently empty and meaningless. He knew nothing and no one of where he was going.

Lessons Sol learned from working at Pale advertising: “I was trained at the black ops boot camp to write in alliterative sentences, ever seeking the clever and the wry…the flat language of conformity and commerce, of self-actualization and self-esteem. A language that descended precipitously from Esalen to advertising to journalism to politics, pooling and cooling in the common American lexicon, where it rests now, stagnant and stinking.”

The first part of the narrative is mostly satirical, dry, sudden, droll, absurdist. That’s a lot to do with Karolina Klein, who took no prisoners and held few things sacred, as well as knowing how to command power and manipulate others. It was “her refusal to modify language or subject…It was her wildness, her toughness, a perspective and humor that only suffering and abject terror can provide.” As she said, ‘”Against a survivor of the Holocaust, you cannot win.’” Almost every concept, thought, or creative drive that Sol had was a result of his Baba Klein’s persuasive authority. The story flips back and forth between the present and the past, which includes a past relationship that Sol has failed to reconcile.

I haven’t even gotten to the Coded Garden yet, where most of the action and adventure takes place. The place was physically beautiful, a true Garden of Eden. I will leave most of this for the reader to uncover and discover. The director, Sebastian Light, is a cipher-like self-proclaimed leader of truth, beauty, and art. Even his name is pretentious. It’s hard to take him seriously, as he speaks and teaches in such clichéd language, a language that Sol understands and despises.

Is Sebastian a legerdemain? I fault whoever wrote the blurb on the book for comparing him to Trump. That wasn't necessary. I think an overt parallel (or even a subtext of Trump) was wrong-footed for the story. It hamstrung it because it put a limit on imagination. There are a lot of men out there that share some of the basic traits of Trump, but it felt to me that the comparison was more aspirational, not relevant, and it interfered with that social contract between writer and reader. I am trying to be circumspect here. This central figure should have been more organically alarming. But it was too busy mimicking. I know that Maksik is capable of creating a character who is both villain and authentic, with provocative details. Sebastian Light often came across (purposely) as silhouette more than person, which could have been expanded on. Instead the satire falls flat because the character doesn't have genuine lift-off.

The narrative becomes a lot more serious, with a touch of snarl, as the novel progresses further into part two, (part two is the majority of the book). I think Maksik handicapped himself with Sebastian, who was too shameless and odious to fool anyone. Were they fooled, the participants at this beautiful garden? Or would we sell our souls for room, board, and free feedback? A place to paint and all materials supplied? Maksik’s prose--his aphorisms and metaphors, wooed me, and Karolina Klein captivated me. Much of the Coded Garden adventure could do with more drafts; it didn’t feel ready for prime time to me.

I think part two could have been more nuanced if the author had not encumbered himself. There are some other cagey characters such as Siddartha, a chiseled, body-perfect artist who befriends Sol. The other artists helped fill in the scene for the theme, but nobody stuck out as wow-ing me. The theme? What is art v noise, what is reality v fantasy—paradigms that slip into satire, and then gravitas added as a component. At times, it is both absurd and deadly serious. At others, a bit wobbly. The art colony story fell a bit flat for me. It would make an interesting companion book to Red Pill, by Hari Kunzru.

Part three regenerated it for me, why my assessment is rounded up to 4 stars. You don’t know any finality until the very last line, which all boils down to Maksik’s use of language, tenses. Conjugate THAT! Brilliant, show-stopping but subtly commanding finish--- I’m still musing on it. The whole is better than the sum of its parts but some of its parts were surprising. Of course, without the context of the rest of the book, the last line won’t mean anything. But, as its conclusion, it jarred me, held me in a vise. I SCREECHED and I needed a personal debriefing! It was the incorruptible side of Maksik’s writing.

If you are a Maksik fan, go for it. I’m glad I read it. But, if you’ve never read him before, start with You Deserve Nothing.

I’ll continue to be first in line for his next book.

A sincere thanks to Europa for sending me an advanced copy to review.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another exchange between My Inner Critic (MIC) and the Critic Of My Inner Critic (COMIC) -
MIC: I'm getting a little tired of bashing books.
COMIC: Then don't. Give this writer a chance.
MIC: But that's not honest. One of the themes of this pretentious mess of a novel is the need to be honest versus the need to be kind. Ultimately, however, this book is neither.
COMIC: Are those the only two possible objectives? Can't the author have his own ambitions?
MIC: Yeah, but f*ck if I know what they are.
COMIC: Oh . . . you hated this book because you didn't understand it!
MIC: No, I didn't, but I neither understand everything I like, nor do I like everything I understand. "The Long Corner" . . . a meaningless title, by the way . . . reminds me of Iris Murdoch, whose work also alludes to esoteric philosophical and artistic conflicts which I don't understand, but in a much more enjoyable way.
COMIC: That's because she's British. You find her exotic whereas you find Mr. Maksik's literal and metaphorical New York milieu to be trite and overfamiliar. That shouldn't affect your judgment.
MIC: How can it not? How can I ignore the fact that this is, like, the 5,000th novel I've read about a depressed New York pseudo-intellectual on a quest for meaning? To identify a cliché is to make an objective observation. Oh, Christ, now I sound like one of the pretentious a$$holes in this book.
COMIC: "Quest for meaning." Isn't all literature a quest for meaning?
MIC: Hmm, "The Long Corner" is polluting your thought processes, too . . . except thanks for mentioning literature, in Mr. Maksik's world, "art" is limited to painting and sculpture, with a few snide references to photography, just to reinforce the sense of insularity.
COMIC: Ah, there it is . . . "insularity." "The Long Corner" is like a detailed account of a party to which you weren't invited, and never would be. Will you ever get over being unpopular in high school?
MIC: If half the Republican politicians in America can't, why should I? But that reminds me . . Mr. Maksik complains about Trump without offering any serious critique or analysis, he just assumes the reader will share his hostility. Which, God knows, I do, but in the context of "The Long Corner," the political references are just one more form of cliquishness, one more signifier that this book is intended for the right sort of person.
COMIC: All novels intended are intended for "the right sort of person." Don't you believe that literature written for the widest possible audience tends to be insipid or, dare I say it . . . clichéd?
MIC: Of course it can, just like literature written for a tiny population of cultural elitists can be insipid or clichéd. You're not creating literature, you're participating in rituals.
COMIC: But a lot of life is -
MIC: Shut up. Shut up now.

[emma charlton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise is sooo interesting, a grieving writer is enlisted to visit an artist colony to write about its mysterious founder. I definitely did not expect to be bored, but I was just always wanting more and then when I got it, it was too much. Still very cool though.

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 3 out of 5]

A jaded art critic finds himself becoming increasingly depressed while visiting an artists retreat.

[jenni · Rating 2 out of 5]

literature but make it meaningless

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was in the mood for this style of writing--a little pretentious, allusions scattered throughout like Dad-puns, but so many sentences that made me stop and re-read them to enjoy them again.

I don't know what the book is about. The protagonist would mock that question. It's not experimental or meta; it doesn't play with form. The structure is standard, and a lot feels familiar (Dracula, Shteyngart, that Carly Simon song "You're So Vain"). And even though the plot is predictable, there's something hard to pin down.

I loved the mother and grandmother, all the scenes of them raising the protagonist and stuffing him full of their hard-earned, contradictory advice. The protagonist's women peers don't fare so well. He mocks and ghosts his girlfriend (granted, the mocking is fun). His observations of Plume and her dark skin and dark curly hair get a bit creepy. His turn to Crystalline/Eva is uninteresting.

I don't know what to make of the rich-madman character, Sebastian Light. The author gets in great zingers--this is the kind of guy who spouts off pseudo-Buddhist nonsense all the time but doesn't realize that Siddhartha is the given, not chosen, name of one of the artists in his experiment. Is he someone who tried to be a painter but couldn't handle the critics and thus became a self-described "dictator" over an artists' retreat called the Coded Garden, a man whose anti-semitism is really not coded at all? Or is he just another old white guy with too much money, from mysterious sources, who pays people to put up with his speeches and not tell him he's a shallow, boring narcissist? Is he a politician or a patron? Is the garden a Silicon Valley incubator or is it more like an Amazon warehouse?

3.5, but rounding up.

[Isaac · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were times when this novel was powerful. For example: "As long as I knew I would die, the new sculptures could never be empty of death, but they could become driven by and evidence of my futile, joyful war against it" and "The seat of power is made of shadows". However, this insight often felt forced, related to the plot but unnaturally woven in. The author would frequently write: " I remember my grandmother used to say... " as a method for introducing such ideas. I also found the dialogue unnecessarily complex at times, making it hard to fully identify with the characters.

This was largely a story about grief, with the author constantly reminiscing about his grandma. He was always recalling, upset, wounded, pouting, and it felt like the reader was supposed to feel equal gravity of the situation alongside the main character. Sympathy was initially evoked, but became redundant with each sad reflection, which did not move the grief in any direction. Something is missed when describing emotion in detail - I feel the strongest sense of sympathy when I am allowed to infer grief through the actions, behavior of the characters. To say, "She cried for days" is less powerful than "she began to sleep in". It's also possible that I am missing the point: perhaps grief doesn't evolve, it stubbornly stays despite efforts to move on. Still, I think the explicit references reduced their potential impact.

My favorite theme developed was the relationship between cynicism and purity. Can art be naive, created without knowledge of the cruelty of the world? The main character seemed to think no, the owner of the garden yes. My conclusion from observing both arguments is that art can be celebratory -- an artistic scheme with no reference to light would be missing a critical component of life -- but regardless of the valence, it must be authentic. I thought the ending strong, providing a much needed twist that supported the authors message that that vanity trumps purity.

[Joseph Hodge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just couldn't get in to this book at all. Stuck with it, but boring.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maksik’s deceptively simple story blossoms into a novel of ideas. To his credit, he is not overly dogmatic about any of his many themes. This is indeed the novel’s strength. Maskik leaves his ideas hanging out there, just ambiguous enough to permit the reader to mull them over. Ostensibly, this is a book about the nature of art and beauty. However, Maksik’s themes range more broadly. They include differences between the superficial and the truly creative; sincerity and manipulation; hollow ambition and real success; brutal honesty and sycophancy; and openness to joy vs. structure. Also, he toys with what it means to be a Jew, sexual identity and the depressing emptiness of modern existence.

The narrator is Solomon Fields. When we first meet him, he is lost and depressed. He was once a successful journalist but now just writes schlock for an advertising firm. He is dissatisfied with his shallow girlfriend and has divided loyalties between two other strong women in his life. His mother and grandmother have opposing views on just about everything. These reflect in their polarized advice to Sol about how to negotiate life. On the one hand, his grandmother is a free spirit whose bohemian lifestyle permits all types of behaviors but values art and beauty above all. Despite not having any talent herself, she urges Sol to cling to artists as beacons for a successful life. On the other hand, Sol’s mother is the ultimate pragmatist. She is passionate about the kinds of structure one finds in political movements. She started out as a leftist/Marxist but ended up as a supporter of the Israeli ultra-right. She tells Sol, “Whatever you do, it’s got to be for more than yourself.”

The plot is simple enough. Following the death of his grandmother, Sol seeks to recover his past journalistic success by accepting an invitation to write about a remote artists’ colony known as “The Coded Garden.” Its patron is a pretentious, self-absorbed Trumpian figure known as Sebastian Light. Sol slowly discovers that his subject sheds very little in the way of “light” on his past. He is a mysterious guru with a murky history filled with rumors of failure in the New York art scene but puzzling financial success. His colony smacks of cultism. Sol comes to view Light as “an empty, talentless narcissist who lives in a closed loop dependent on the constant adulation of a bunch of desperate sycophants.” Yet even he has some redeeming qualities.

THE LONG CORNER is an engaging satire with lots to talk but few easy answers. His characters are mostly quirky but driven. The plot is often uncomfortable but mysterious. One of the prominent mysteries is the meaning of the book’s title. What is a “long corner” anyway? This seems to have an oxymoronic quality suggesting that Maksik may be arguing in favor of risk and irony as key elements for success in both art and life.

[Kristin Mack · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 parts. The grandmother is the connection between the two parts. The first part is New York City and the changing of art to commerce driven artistic endeavors. The second part is a fantasy world where everything is art, but devoid of any requirements on quality. It was interesting and the main character is intriguing, though character relationships could have been mined to go deeper or a lack of ability to reach a new depth between characters could’ve been explored further.

[Elena · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was genuinely terrible and it did nothing for me. I actually wonder what the point of it was. Nothing happened, nothing was explained, it all amounted to nothing. Would never recommend

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredibly interesting, verging on prophetic

[Shira · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5

The whole time I was reading this, I felt pretty amused. I thought the characters, the direction the plot was headed, the questions it poses -- they were all pretty amusing, but at the end of the day, nothing more.

The main character was generally likable, and helped ground me when he (and I) were surrounded by some insane people speaking a language that did not feel like English. I am glad the author articulated that and didn't just let us sift through a kitschy mess without a guiding hand.

I like art as much as the next person, I think, but I'd be lying if I said I have spent more than 5 minutes thinking about the questions this book poses about what art is or what it can be and who is and isn't an artist. This book made me interested in these questions for more than 5 minutes, though, which I think is a job well done.

I did feel like I was missing a finale of some sort, a "real" ending instead of what to me felt like a bit of a cop-out. We don't get to learn much about where these characters, who we have been spending so much time with, end up, or what they've learned, or really anything of that nature. In fact, I'd say there is little to no character growth; Solomon starts and ends exactly the same, really.

But: this amused me, it fairly entertained me, and it was a quick read. The writing could be quite over the top here and there but nothing too horrible, and was overall very readable and fast-paced.

Lesson Learned: Discussing art in the way this book wants me to is actually probably pretty worthwhile. Do I have to do it this instant? No, but it is something to think about.

[Bec · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Long Corner is a story full of ideas, many of which - cult behaviour, ambition, the dismissal of American culture - are incredibly in-tune with what society is fascinated by. But despite this, it is a novel that just didn't have the mind-bending impact that it promised.

Readers who are interested in a unique conversation, albeit a slower one, may still want to keep this book on their lists. There is no doubt that it explores interesting ideas, when considering the direction of Western ideas and how - or whether - we should break away from that mould. But a large portion of this book felt cheesy and forced. The cult aspect, including their leader, felt trivialised with more than one scene feeling as though it was implemented solely for shock factor.

→ trigger warnings: anti-Semitism & Holocaust discussion,

Note: Review copy (audiobook) received from Libro.FM. This does not impact opinions within this review.

becandbooks.com ‧ trigger warning database ‧ more links

[Cassie · Rating 4 out of 5]

SVWC July 2022

[elise maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5/5) this book is ostensibly about a man’s trip to a strange and cultish artist colony, but more than anything it focuses on his relationships with the women in his life. I specifically love his grandmother and thought their scenes together had such fresh and witty dialogue. I like the way grief is dealt with and the exploration of what a meaningful life looks like. there’s also a lot of discussion of art and beauty, how they connect, and whether you can or should have one without the other. this was strange and disturbing and I didn’t fully get it, but it was certainly an interesting read with beautiful writing.

[Greeny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly I cannot make up my mind what I thought of this book. The author is very talented, very pretentious, very aware of being talented and very aware of being pretentious. I thought of ceasing to read this about three times and never did. All in all the characters were too interesting to quit - I needed to find out what became of them. The ending is satisfying. I only recommend because I want someone else to read it and explain it to me.

[RT · Rating 1 out of 5]

Only reason its getting a full star is because there are no negative ratings and I really like the first 50 pages of the book ... right up until the cult leaders 'cucumber penis' showed up out of no where.

No thank you.

[Khuyen Dinh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my favorite book of the summer last year — serious, tense, mysterious, a definite page turner. Cult vibes and makes you uncomfortable in a way a good book should.

[Katharine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kept almost getting sucked into this book but couldn’t quite get there, but I liked several of the characters. Just felt like I was missing one thread that would’ve tied everything up.

[Ellie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t even know what happened in this book lol

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frustrating but ultimately satisfying novel about a young-ish (mid-30s) man who was raised by a bitter, caustic, communist mother and a grandmother who survived the Holocaust and loves art and honesty above all.

The man, Solomon, lets them both down by, after a semi-successful career as a journalist profiling artists, starts writing copy for a frou-frou ad agency. After his grandmother Lina's suicide, he gets contacted by a woman who is part of an arts colony run by a fabulously rich, fabulously old and fabulously toned man, who wants Solomon to write about him. Disillusioned with his life, and ignoring his mothers advice to "never live in an ashram", he accepts the invitation to visit but will not commit to writing about the place called The Coded Garden. Here, art is meant to celebrate beauty and truth. Stripped and devoid of any unsightly feelings such as rage, anger, irony, here, true art is meant to uplift. And it is mostly awful. Still, there is something intriguing about the place and its inhabitants. Sure, there is a cult like feel to anything, but the search for truth is honorable. So Sol sticks around and gets to know some of the residents. Ultimately, he is searching for some beauty himself and clearly grasping for meaning.

The main issue with The Long Corner is, save from Sol, the narrator, most of the characters are symbols or ciphers, and fairly undisguised ones at that. This is a particular issue for Sol's mother and grandmother. But the same goes for most of the supporting characters. Luckily, Maksik is a superb and very funny writer. This gets you over the hump some of the narrative lulls and ultimately brings a satisfying read. Very good enough to make you wish it were great.

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Long Corner by Alexander Maksik is an unusual novel that masquerades as a regular old novel. What I mean is that the reader goes along a path that seems quite familiar then suddenly realizes that all isn't as it appears.

I will say upfront that this is the type of novel I look forward to rereading after at least a few months. I want some time to think about what the protagonist experienced, what it says about his life and society (which is also our recent past), and what I think it might say about me. Then I want some time for the details of the book to fade. At that point, armed with a recollection of broad perceptions I can revisit the details and see what I find.

I saw a comparison to Fowles' The Magus and I do think it is appropriate. Some very real differences but also some interesting parallels. Aside from the obvious allusions to the insanity that was Trump's administration I also see a lot that speaks to factors well beyond him that influence how we are in our world. This is also one of those books where I am even more hesitant than usual to mention anything very detailed because the book needs, I think, to unfold for the reader with a minimal number of preconceptions. The book blurbs and descriptions cover all I think needs to be said before reading.

I definitely recommend this for readers who enjoy novels that sneak up on you, whether in going from light to dark or in making one think about things in a new way.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Kyle Schlicht · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice, simple novel about art, integrity, inheritance, narcism and sincerity. The protagonist is a writer that was raised by his mother and grandmother who represent clashing ideals of art between righteous orthodoxy and ebullient rebellion. Doubting his ability and endurance to achieve success as an artist and bohemian and feeling guilty for not fulfilling his grandmother's philosophy, he visited an artist community built by an egotistic billionaire trying to establish his own sincere conception of beauty.

The billionaire and his community remind me of some of the tech companies I've worked for where the sincerity is at times overwhelmingly unpalatable and the idealism is at times ridiculous and dispiriting. It's good to acknowledge the absurdity of life and laugh at yourself occasionally. Having beliefs is good but dogmatism can lead to indoctrination and conflict.

Alexander Maksik is fine with creating absurd characters that lend themselves to clear statements of right and wrong and in our age of social media hucksters and grandstanders this is perhaps refreshing and a bit cathartic.

[Kristen Bookrvws · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book!

It follows Sol, a journalist turned corporate sell out who gets invited to a cultish-artists’ retreat run by an eccentric millionaire. While there, sol looks for the “truth” about the Coded Garden and the motivations of its leader and participants. It asks us the big questions: “what is art” and “who decided what is art”. It also asks us whether one persons reality, opinion, or truth is more valuable than another’s? And if so, what makes theirs more valid? Does cynicism and criticism make someone’s opinion more legitimate? Can ugliness be beauty?

This book is weird and witty without the heavy handedness that sometimes comes from authors trying to be intentionally funny. It’s humor and self deprecating nature are on display with the main character, especially in his dialogue with others. He is ambivalent, cynical, and inquisitive which may seem annoying but work in the context and make Sol out to feel very human.

A really great balance of plot, character development, and environment. So happy to have given this book a chance and can’t wait to read more from this author!

[Lauren Small · Rating 3 out of 5]

“He was so dull. I had to fight to keep going. I didn’t know why, but it seemed to me then as if by stopping, by giving up, I would forfeit; I would fail; I would lose something vital of myself.”

Albeit, it’s a beautifully and well-written, the above quote is precisely how I felt about 50% of this book. Solomon had been living his life in NYC where he established a normal life. But this life is not what his mother and grandmother truly desire for him. He is tormented by his love for both these women. Once he wrote a piece on a prolific artist who he admires mainly because of he is largely influenced by his grandmother who had an odd, maybe even unhealthy, infatuation with the NYC art scene and its people. He has moved on career wise, yet the article’s existence resurfaces when a man wants the same article written for him.

Personally, I tired of the repetitive nature of Solomon’s need to constantly reflect, beating around the bush, and laziness. He nearly ends back when he started, but now content. The book wraps up in a haphazard way that bridges to set fire to a part of the book that could have been really interesting, but that part of the story is left to end inconclusively.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

beautifully written, which is what i liked about it most. the later third of the novel felt muddled to me & unclear in its intention. there is a lot of - a character emerging, beginning to become fleshed out, then sort of dropping off unceremoniously and amounting to nothing. i suspect this is sort of the point (no one except the grandmother or mother has a strong sense of identity or Character), and it’s a nauseatingly pedantic, exhausting cast to get through. i got very tired of being in the narrator’s head but i suspect that is also by design. maybe (absolutely) i’m not enough of an art nerd to appreciate all the nuances in this book, probably if you are it’s a more enjoyable read and i suspect there are poignant moments that were lost on me.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solomon Fields’ life is a mess: he lives a vapid existence in New York City, writing ad copy for products he doesn’t believe in and living with a woman who seems to have no inner life. When a family emergency occurs, Sol is forced to take stock of his life. In Alexander Maksik’s “The Long Corner” (Europa Editions), this crisis leads him to accept an invitation to an artist colony called The Coded Garden, which is located on a tropical island.
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/past...

[Augie Witkowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was decent I guess? I was intrigued and entertained. Despite that, this book took a significant amount of effort to finish even though I enjoyed the writing style. Felt like my eyes were glazing over with the sheer amount of times the same conceptual points were hit and the same questions were asked. I think it would have been stronger if it was less repetitive as the ideas presented are interesting to think about. Also, maybe I would have liked it more if I wasn’t in corporate America lol.

[Jess Grimes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I didn’t like this book very much. There were definitely interesting elements to the narrative, but the parts that were “supposed to” be exciting fell exceptionally flat and the supposed political commentary was for the most part dry and uninspired. I loved the relationship between the protagonist and his grandma and I wish the book had been about her stories instead. The ending was also so insanely rushed for no reason and left me feeling a bit unsatisfied