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Utopia
It's okay for men to make bad art. There's no price on their head for doing it... Nothing for men is pre-determined, except their chance at great success.
When Romy, a gifted young artist in the male-dominated art scene of 1970s California, dies in suspicious circumstances, it is not long before her husband Billy finds a replacement.
Paz, fresh out of art school in New York, returns to California to take her place. But she is haunted by Romy, who is everywhere: in the photos and notebooks and art strewn around the house, and in the eyes of the baby she left behind, the baby Paz is now mother to.
Then, strange things begin to happen. Photographs move, noises reverberate through the house, people start to question what really happened the night Romy died, and then a postcard in her handwriting arrives.
When Romy, a gifted young artist in the male-dominated art scene of 1970s California, dies in suspicious circumstances, it is not long before her husband Billy finds a replacement.
Paz, fresh out of art school in New York, returns to California to take her place. But she is haunted by Romy, who is everywhere: in the photos and notebooks and art strewn around the house, and in the eyes of the baby she left behind, the baby Paz is now mother to.
Then, strange things begin to happen. Photographs move, noises reverberate through the house, people start to question what really happened the night Romy died, and then a postcard in her handwriting arrives.
272 pages, Paperback
Published October 4, 2022
34 people are currently reading
1823 people want to read
About the author
Heidi Sopinka
7 books45 followersHeidi Sopinka has worked as a bush cook in the Yukon, a travel writer in Southeast Asia, a helicopter pilot, a magazine editor, and is co-designer at Horses Atelier. She has written for The Paris Review, The Believer, Brick, and Lenny Letter. She is widely published as a journalist in Canada, where she won a national magazine award and was The Globe and Mail's environment columnist. The Dictionary of Animal Languages, her début novel, was chosen by AnOther magazine as “one of the six novels set to conquer 2018,” was a semi-finalist for The Morning News Tournament of Books Best Novels from 2018, was long-listed for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, and has been translated into Polish and Dutch.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
July 30, 2022
Heidi Sopinka’s novel’s steeped in the artworld of the 1970s, with a focus on the women who pioneered radical forms of performance art. The story with its echoes of Rebecca centres on Paz, a young painter at the start of her career who marries older, highly-acclaimed art star Billy. Now she’s alone in a house in L.A. looking after his young daughter while Billy’s away on tour. But she’s increasingly weighed down by obsessive thoughts of his first wife Romy, a revered, performance artist who died in mysterious, possibly sinister, circumstances.
Sopinka’s depiction of artistic movements in the 1970s is well-researched. The nature of Romy’s death and subsequent events are an intriguing take on the real-life scandal surrounding sculptor Carl Andre who was arrested, and later acquitted, for the alleged murder of his wife, prominent performance artist and photographer, Ana Mendieta. Mendieta’s since become an iconic figure. Rather like Sylvia Plath in the field of literature, Mendieta’s a potent, feminist symbol whose experiences and tragic end have been viewed as encapsulating the oppressive nature of the artworld for women practitioners. Sopinka’s narrative explores linked questions around women and creativity, the privileging of men’s work by galleries and critics, as well as more intimate issues around jealousy, toxic masculinity, sexual freedom and the challenges of parenting in a system that automatically sidelines mothers.
The setting, the hint of du Maurier, the numerous references to women artists should have made this the perfect book for me, but somehow, I just failed to fully connect with this. There are some excellent stretches of prose, and the questions raised were relevant ones, but I never felt that the characters, particularly Paz, fully came to life. And at times I really struggled. There was something just a little too self-conscious and too claustrophobic for me about the overall style and the treatment of Paz’s story. Information was sometimes introduced too abruptly yet the pace could feel excruciatingly slow, and the ending set far into the future just didn’t fully convince. In the end it was a book I wanted to like far more than I actually did. Although this is obviously my personal reaction, a number of other reviewers have had more positive responses.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Scribe UK for an ARC
Sopinka’s depiction of artistic movements in the 1970s is well-researched. The nature of Romy’s death and subsequent events are an intriguing take on the real-life scandal surrounding sculptor Carl Andre who was arrested, and later acquitted, for the alleged murder of his wife, prominent performance artist and photographer, Ana Mendieta. Mendieta’s since become an iconic figure. Rather like Sylvia Plath in the field of literature, Mendieta’s a potent, feminist symbol whose experiences and tragic end have been viewed as encapsulating the oppressive nature of the artworld for women practitioners. Sopinka’s narrative explores linked questions around women and creativity, the privileging of men’s work by galleries and critics, as well as more intimate issues around jealousy, toxic masculinity, sexual freedom and the challenges of parenting in a system that automatically sidelines mothers.
The setting, the hint of du Maurier, the numerous references to women artists should have made this the perfect book for me, but somehow, I just failed to fully connect with this. There are some excellent stretches of prose, and the questions raised were relevant ones, but I never felt that the characters, particularly Paz, fully came to life. And at times I really struggled. There was something just a little too self-conscious and too claustrophobic for me about the overall style and the treatment of Paz’s story. Information was sometimes introduced too abruptly yet the pace could feel excruciatingly slow, and the ending set far into the future just didn’t fully convince. In the end it was a book I wanted to like far more than I actually did. Although this is obviously my personal reaction, a number of other reviewers have had more positive responses.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Scribe UK for an ARC
July 5, 2022
She said that light was a subject that, thank god, had no gender. 'Anyway,' she said, 'Man, woman, I'm never really sure which one I am.'
Books about women and art are like catnip to me so this was always going to be a winner. Sopinka takes an informed and sophisticated view of the way art is both commodified in capitalist terms and how the systems and structures associated with it are acutely gendered from the way male artists are frequently allowed to be disembodied, to the way that gallery biographies include women's family and domestic backgrounds but rarely those of men.
Set in LA in the 1970s, this is a re-writing of Rebecca, referenced in the text, as Paz is obsessed with her husband's first wife, the artist Romy. Paz isn't nearly as interesting as Romy which, I'm assuming, is deliberately echoing the unnamed second wife of Du Maurier's classic but, luckily, she has interesting artistic friends and access to Romy's diaries, fascinating documents that are almost an artistic manifesto in their own right.
This isn't in any sense a mystery, though there is the question of what happened to Romy. Set at the time when female artists are reading Valerie Solanas' SCUM Manifesto there are questions about the constraints under which creative women are tethered - and Sopinka comes up with a surprising epilogue to tackle the issue of (in)visibility that is threaded through the text.
A quick read but an engaging and intelligent one.
Many thanks to Scribe UK for an ARC via NetGalley
July 18, 2022
I read this on a whim, so I was surprised to discover it’s a rewrite of one of my favourite books, Rebecca. But where Rebecca is about the landed gentry and set in a seaside mansion in Cornwall, Utopia is about female artists trying to get ahead in the 1970s California desert.
The first half of this book was quite good. It’s written in a very North American style, you know, where people’s hair is always smelling of sweat and violets, but I enjoyed the triumvirate of characters: working class Paz, a struggling artist living in the shadow of her husband’s dead wife; beautiful but emotionally opaque Billy, successful because he’s a man; and Romy, who died under mysterious circumstances. The desert setting was appropriately different, its harsh environment adding a sense of danger to the narrative.
However, this didn’t ultimately work for me for two main reasons. First of all, as a rewrite I would argue it’s too faithful to the source text. I’ve read Rebecca several times, so absolutely nothing here surprised me. It’s noteworthy if you also consider that Rebecca is in many ways a rewrite itself, of the Bluebeard legend, and many readers have pointed out its uncanny plot similarities to Jane Eyre. But it’s the kind of rewrite that takes and idea or a structure and goes somewhere else with it, drawing new conclusions that ultimately reflect back on the source text and change our reading of it in a Borgesian way (we must see the implications of Jane Eyre’s Mr Rochester a little differently, if we compare him to Maxim de Winter). However, Utopia, as far as I can tell, didn’t do anything that Rebecca hasn’t already done, or certainly nothing that Helen Oyeyemi didn’t do in Mr. Fox, but both those books had the advantage of being much more oblique, of letting the reader stir around in the images and feelings and draw their own conclusions.
Which is my second complaint here. The second half of the book starts to spell everything out. Characters sit and talk, not just about what happened, but about how it made them feel, how their own past history influenced how they felt, how they might have felt if they’d had then the information they have now, ad nauseum. None of it sounded very 1970s to my ear, I’m afraid, it sounded straight out of a therapy session today and was unbelievably tedious. The final chapter has even more of this stuff. . Readers' mileage may vary, but there’s nothing I hate more than being earnestly lectured at in a work of fiction.
So this is a frustrated two stars from me, BUT I will say that if the book had finished at about the 70% point, which I suspect is where an original draft did finish, with a fire in a building that is of course reminiscent of the fires at the end of Jane Eyre and Rebecca … if it had finished there I would have rated it much more highly.
Thanks to Netgalley and Scribe UK for an ARC.
The first half of this book was quite good. It’s written in a very North American style, you know, where people’s hair is always smelling of sweat and violets, but I enjoyed the triumvirate of characters: working class Paz, a struggling artist living in the shadow of her husband’s dead wife; beautiful but emotionally opaque Billy, successful because he’s a man; and Romy, who died under mysterious circumstances. The desert setting was appropriately different, its harsh environment adding a sense of danger to the narrative.
However, this didn’t ultimately work for me for two main reasons. First of all, as a rewrite I would argue it’s too faithful to the source text. I’ve read Rebecca several times, so absolutely nothing here surprised me. It’s noteworthy if you also consider that Rebecca is in many ways a rewrite itself, of the Bluebeard legend, and many readers have pointed out its uncanny plot similarities to Jane Eyre. But it’s the kind of rewrite that takes and idea or a structure and goes somewhere else with it, drawing new conclusions that ultimately reflect back on the source text and change our reading of it in a Borgesian way (we must see the implications of Jane Eyre’s Mr Rochester a little differently, if we compare him to Maxim de Winter). However, Utopia, as far as I can tell, didn’t do anything that Rebecca hasn’t already done, or certainly nothing that Helen Oyeyemi didn’t do in Mr. Fox, but both those books had the advantage of being much more oblique, of letting the reader stir around in the images and feelings and draw their own conclusions.
Which is my second complaint here. The second half of the book starts to spell everything out. Characters sit and talk, not just about what happened, but about how it made them feel, how their own past history influenced how they felt, how they might have felt if they’d had then the information they have now, ad nauseum. None of it sounded very 1970s to my ear, I’m afraid, it sounded straight out of a therapy session today and was unbelievably tedious. The final chapter has even more of this stuff. . Readers' mileage may vary, but there’s nothing I hate more than being earnestly lectured at in a work of fiction.
So this is a frustrated two stars from me, BUT I will say that if the book had finished at about the 70% point, which I suspect is where an original draft did finish, with a fire in a building that is of course reminiscent of the fires at the end of Jane Eyre and Rebecca … if it had finished there I would have rated it much more highly.
Thanks to Netgalley and Scribe UK for an ARC.
June 17, 2022
I really enjoyed the actual journey of reading this one, I read it fast! Utopia follows female performance artists in the desert in seventies America, and there’s a bit of a mystery element to it, although the main storyline centres more around heartsearching and following one’s passion, and the feminist movement at the time. Paz is our lead character, and she is a young woman who has become the second wife of a man whose first wife died in mysterious circumstances, leaving behind a young baby. Paz is, like the first wife, Romy, a performance artist, but both struggle to make art at all in such a male-dominated world. Now Paz’s time is taken up in looking after the baby, who is for most of the novel inexplicably called Flea, and wondering exactly what happened to Romy, whom she idolised. Most people blame Paz for taking Romy’s place, especially so soon after Romy’s death, and part of the early novel explores her struggling to work out how to carry on with her art and where she fits in in this new world that seems more Romy’s than hers. I have to say, there were times I didn’t feel I connected with the characters and their art, and the last 10% of the novel took a strange turn I wasn’t expecting and am not sure I enjoyed; but generally speaking I think this was an interesting novel. I think the elements around exploring a passion and creative talent were interesting, and the novel also explores themes of gender identity very well.
My thanks to #NetGalley and Scribe UK for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
My thanks to #NetGalley and Scribe UK for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
September 3, 2022
3.5
Update: Initially, I would have said this was whiney but well-written. The first chapter or two reek of privilege, and it was unclear how self-aware that was.
However, the more I thought about it and the more I got to know Billy, the more I understood the authors critiques of elitism and sexism in the art world, and the angrier I felt for Paz. I am not familiar with the source material, but generally appreciated how Sopinka handles the motherhood/artist/laborer dilemma a lot of woman and nb creatives face. It stands on its own for me, despite the pretentious moments.
Still, they don't take away from the visceral, clawing-at-the-surface emotions blooming throughout the story: grief, exhaustion, doubt, insecurity within a relationship with an indifferent man, identity crises, guilt, shame, impending obsolescence, resentment at being saddled with someone else's responsibility, feeling time slip away with nothing to show for it.
As an artist who is no longer 22, that last one hit home.
Update: Initially, I would have said this was whiney but well-written. The first chapter or two reek of privilege, and it was unclear how self-aware that was.
However, the more I thought about it and the more I got to know Billy, the more I understood the authors critiques of elitism and sexism in the art world, and the angrier I felt for Paz. I am not familiar with the source material, but generally appreciated how Sopinka handles the motherhood/artist/laborer dilemma a lot of woman and nb creatives face. It stands on its own for me, despite the pretentious moments.
Still, they don't take away from the visceral, clawing-at-the-surface emotions blooming throughout the story: grief, exhaustion, doubt, insecurity within a relationship with an indifferent man, identity crises, guilt, shame, impending obsolescence, resentment at being saddled with someone else's responsibility, feeling time slip away with nothing to show for it.
As an artist who is no longer 22, that last one hit home.
October 2, 2022
I heard Shelagh Rogers interview the author on CBC and it sounded intriguing. Unfortunately, although it’s set in the art world (vaguely), I couldn’t get engaged with the characters at all and decided to abandon it about a third of the way through. This still feels brave because for years I would never abandon a book once begun, but at last I realize there are no Book Finisher Police.
September 22, 2022
Utopia by Heidi Sopinka is ultimately a love story in the vein of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Set in the California of the 1970s we meet Paz, a young artist, who is drawn to Romy, a woman breaking into a male-dominated art scene. Finding herself also drawn to Romy's husband Billy, Paz packs up her life in New York to step into the life that Romy has vacated when she dies suddenly under questionable circumstances. What follows is a ghostly affair that has Paz obsessively seeking an elusive truth that blurs the lines between art and life.
I enjoyed this novel for it stylish take on the female performance artists of the time, though the mystery of it all, for me, fell a bit short of expectation.
I was pleased to receive a copy of this novel from Penguin Random House Canada to read and review.
I enjoyed this novel for it stylish take on the female performance artists of the time, though the mystery of it all, for me, fell a bit short of expectation.
I was pleased to receive a copy of this novel from Penguin Random House Canada to read and review.
November 6, 2022
I don't know if I was in the right mood for this one! A very fascinating premise and a cool retelling I might like to work on someday, but just very much a book I needed to be in the right mindset for.
October 2, 2022
Review/interview forthcoming
November 19, 2023
2.5
God, this was boring.
God, this was boring.
May 14, 2024
bought for the mysterious death, read for the second wave feminism. did not need the last chapter though. would have been much better left vague, without the sentimentality
August 9, 2023
I basically spaced out the whole way through this - I liked the conversations around women and the art world but I felt that I was waiting on Romy’s POV the whole time and struggling to connect to Paz (and then flea’s character) - ultimately could have done more to establish more emotional connection through the writing
December 21, 2022
Really great. Though Sopinka’s voice was hard for me to judge at the beginning I really grew to appreciate it. I thought that the journey Paz takes is so important and the situation she’s in really made her realizations special to me. The ending was confusing tho
June 27, 2025
Utopia focuses a group of feminist performance artists in the 70s. The book alternates between 2 FMC, Romy and Paz. Romy dies in the beginning as a young mom to a 7 week old baby and Paz begins mothering the baby. A journey between the “captivity of motherhood” and working to make a living in art.
“Would Romy have done this - let the baby cry? When she goes to Flea, she is peering out from behind the bars like an animal in captivity. Her cheeks are red, and her hair is damp and sticking to her forward in a combover. It occurs to Paz that motherhood is also a form of captivity.”
“Would Romy have done this - let the baby cry? When she goes to Flea, she is peering out from behind the bars like an animal in captivity. Her cheeks are red, and her hair is damp and sticking to her forward in a combover. It occurs to Paz that motherhood is also a form of captivity.”
March 4, 2025
read for GFM. dnf. mid
July 24, 2022
Utopia is a book that on paper checks many of my boxes:
- Centres art/art theory/artists
- Is interwoven with feminist themes
- Contains a mystery
- Has a narrator who is unreliable for whatever reason
However this book did not quite work for me and I think that is a subjective thing rather than the book being objectively bad.
I'm beginning to realise that I prefer longer narratives. This book is less than 250 pages which made it difficult for me personally to really engage with the characters. I am well aware though that there are readers out there who love this style of story telling and don't like overly descriptive writing. Unfortunately for me it stopped me caring about the story and ultimately not wanting to pick it up to carry on.
For the right reader I can see this being an absolute favourite because you could read and reread this and pick out new things each time. I could also see it being an absolutely brilliant book to study for an English Literature course (I'm rather interested in the types of book studied at GSCE and A-Level in the UK and could really see the merit in this being a book used for that purpose).
I think Heidi Sopinka is a really talented writer and I will be keeping my eye out for future books from her in case she comes out with anything longer. I've read reviews for her previous novel but fear the writing would not suit me either.
I think this may interest fans of Lote by Shola Von Reinhold, The Emperor Waltz by Philip Hensher, Tentacle by Rita Indiana, Swimming Home by Deborah Levy and The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway,
Thank you so much for the opportunity to review this book.
- Centres art/art theory/artists
- Is interwoven with feminist themes
- Contains a mystery
- Has a narrator who is unreliable for whatever reason
However this book did not quite work for me and I think that is a subjective thing rather than the book being objectively bad.
I'm beginning to realise that I prefer longer narratives. This book is less than 250 pages which made it difficult for me personally to really engage with the characters. I am well aware though that there are readers out there who love this style of story telling and don't like overly descriptive writing. Unfortunately for me it stopped me caring about the story and ultimately not wanting to pick it up to carry on.
For the right reader I can see this being an absolute favourite because you could read and reread this and pick out new things each time. I could also see it being an absolutely brilliant book to study for an English Literature course (I'm rather interested in the types of book studied at GSCE and A-Level in the UK and could really see the merit in this being a book used for that purpose).
I think Heidi Sopinka is a really talented writer and I will be keeping my eye out for future books from her in case she comes out with anything longer. I've read reviews for her previous novel but fear the writing would not suit me either.
I think this may interest fans of Lote by Shola Von Reinhold, The Emperor Waltz by Philip Hensher, Tentacle by Rita Indiana, Swimming Home by Deborah Levy and The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway,
Thank you so much for the opportunity to review this book.
October 12, 2022
3.5☆
'She grabbed Romy's wedding dress. It was beautiful white lace, high necked, long. Something she'd never dare to touch. She sheds her clothes on the dusty floor and carefully steps into the dress. She zips up the back as far as she can get it with one hand. They had to completely different bodies, and though the sleeves are too long and it drags on the ground, it fits tightly on Paz. She holds the camera out as far as she can and takes a photo of herself. It will only catch her wild hair and part of the lace. She's not sure what she plans to do with it exactly. A performance? Second wife. Light death. It seems ridiculous now --- nothing she could conceive of could ever touch what she's done in this serious space. She's entered the intensity of it with Romy. It feels ritualistic. Sweat erupts from every pore in her body, her slow-moving flesh submerged between states.'~pg.164
•
I enjoyed this one! A wild ride exploring art, feminism, female friendships, power, betrayal and desire! I loved the short chapters, they made for a quick reading experience. Sopinka's writing was tense and vivid. I found this such a layered story. A welcomed, distinct voice in CanLit and books on artists and creatives. 👏🏻
.
.
#gifted/@penguinrandomca opinions are my own.
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
'She grabbed Romy's wedding dress. It was beautiful white lace, high necked, long. Something she'd never dare to touch. She sheds her clothes on the dusty floor and carefully steps into the dress. She zips up the back as far as she can get it with one hand. They had to completely different bodies, and though the sleeves are too long and it drags on the ground, it fits tightly on Paz. She holds the camera out as far as she can and takes a photo of herself. It will only catch her wild hair and part of the lace. She's not sure what she plans to do with it exactly. A performance? Second wife. Light death. It seems ridiculous now --- nothing she could conceive of could ever touch what she's done in this serious space. She's entered the intensity of it with Romy. It feels ritualistic. Sweat erupts from every pore in her body, her slow-moving flesh submerged between states.'~pg.164
•
I enjoyed this one! A wild ride exploring art, feminism, female friendships, power, betrayal and desire! I loved the short chapters, they made for a quick reading experience. Sopinka's writing was tense and vivid. I found this such a layered story. A welcomed, distinct voice in CanLit and books on artists and creatives. 👏🏻
.
.
#gifted/@penguinrandomca opinions are my own.
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
January 2, 2023
it was decently interesting but the epilogue bit set in 2018 frankly does a disservice to the whole novel--wraps the central event of the book and all the unknowns that made it compelling in a weird too-clean way, and with a tinge of the supernatural that was not present in the rest. truly would have given this a 4 star rating had it ended before the flash-forward.
also i know this book is set within a certain subset of feminism, the mostly-white art world of late 70s LA, so i wasn't expecting anything to challenge binaries (which, at least with modern sff, is a quick way to get me to not pick it up). so imagine my surprise when romy's journals drop a handful of hints about her questioning her gender. i really wanted to see where it was going! however!
anyway. what a weird time
also i know this book is set within a certain subset of feminism, the mostly-white art world of late 70s LA, so i wasn't expecting anything to challenge binaries (which, at least with modern sff, is a quick way to get me to not pick it up). so imagine my surprise when romy's journals drop a handful of hints about her questioning her gender. i really wanted to see where it was going! however!
anyway. what a weird time
December 27, 2022
Utopia by Heidi Sopinka is a unique book that explores women's feminism in the art industry in the 1970s and how they overcame the male domineering world.
Romy, a leading female artist is found dead, leaving husband Billy and their baby behind. Shortly after Billy marries short time friend Paz . As Paz learns how to be a mother to a baby, and things start to not add up she begins to question if Romy is really dead?
Going in with this book I had expectations of a dark psychology obsession type of book, but coming out I realised it’s more a book of finding yourself even among others, using others as inspiration but setting yourself apart from the world. Be that person who lights up colour bombs in the desert! 🏜
Being set in the desert, Sopinka creates a vivid atmospheric novel which in turns produce an unsettling but yet warm experience at the same time. You have all these life threatening circumstances like poisonous snakes, severe heat stroke yet you have Paz who takes care of a baby keeping her cool.
I think my only downfall was I did get a bit lost a few times during the book (I do think that was just me though) other than that I really enjoyed this book and love the unusual perks in this book.
Romy, a leading female artist is found dead, leaving husband Billy and their baby behind. Shortly after Billy marries short time friend Paz . As Paz learns how to be a mother to a baby, and things start to not add up she begins to question if Romy is really dead?
Going in with this book I had expectations of a dark psychology obsession type of book, but coming out I realised it’s more a book of finding yourself even among others, using others as inspiration but setting yourself apart from the world. Be that person who lights up colour bombs in the desert! 🏜
Being set in the desert, Sopinka creates a vivid atmospheric novel which in turns produce an unsettling but yet warm experience at the same time. You have all these life threatening circumstances like poisonous snakes, severe heat stroke yet you have Paz who takes care of a baby keeping her cool.
I think my only downfall was I did get a bit lost a few times during the book (I do think that was just me though) other than that I really enjoyed this book and love the unusual perks in this book.
July 15, 2022
Well, this was really great. I loved the riff on Rebecca, that it was acknowledged within the book quite obviously and then how it eventually went far beyond that initial idea.
I am drawn to novels about artists and what makes them tick, the strangeness of their lives, and their often free boundaries between friendship, sex, love and while definitely not for me, I even find their willingness to seem alternate states of being with booze and drugs to be interesting. Performance art is something I don't know much about, but I enjoyed learning a little more here.
This novel absolutely blazes with the fire of sun-soaked California deserts, prose that is so finely wrought there are entire pages that could be highlighted, and ultimately a lot of questions that the author doesn't entirely answer. What does is mean to be haunted by the shadow of your own potential? How is that changed when you're a woman trying to survive in a man's world? How does that shift again with motherhood? What is the cost of owning your own story?
This is definitely an author to watch.
My thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
I am drawn to novels about artists and what makes them tick, the strangeness of their lives, and their often free boundaries between friendship, sex, love and while definitely not for me, I even find their willingness to seem alternate states of being with booze and drugs to be interesting. Performance art is something I don't know much about, but I enjoyed learning a little more here.
This novel absolutely blazes with the fire of sun-soaked California deserts, prose that is so finely wrought there are entire pages that could be highlighted, and ultimately a lot of questions that the author doesn't entirely answer. What does is mean to be haunted by the shadow of your own potential? How is that changed when you're a woman trying to survive in a man's world? How does that shift again with motherhood? What is the cost of owning your own story?
This is definitely an author to watch.
My thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
December 19, 2024
This is what you get if you steep de Maurier’s Rebecca in sex, drugs, and turpentine and stick it in the 1970s desert art world.
Shimmering with sweat and rippling with obsession and grief (over people, art, obsolescence), the women in this book bristle against the collectivist art world and its misogyny, each of them trying to make their mark in radical performance art, each of them stifled by choices their own and not. In turns unsettling and violent, these characters reckon with their insecurities, both the internal failures of new motherhood and the external pressures to disappear and let the men in their lives thrive.
Character-driven, with palpable rage and unbridled self-reflection, the narrative stews in themes and vibes.
Shimmering with sweat and rippling with obsession and grief (over people, art, obsolescence), the women in this book bristle against the collectivist art world and its misogyny, each of them trying to make their mark in radical performance art, each of them stifled by choices their own and not. In turns unsettling and violent, these characters reckon with their insecurities, both the internal failures of new motherhood and the external pressures to disappear and let the men in their lives thrive.
Character-driven, with palpable rage and unbridled self-reflection, the narrative stews in themes and vibes.
August 30, 2022
I am generally an absolute sucker for books about women artists, and really love Rebecca, the book that this is very loosely based on, but I found myself a bit bored and indifferent to this book.
I appreciated that these women were trying to do something original (as so many of the 70s performance artists were) in a world (still) dominated by men. I appreciated how absence can make someone obsess over the questions left behind by a charismatic and mysterious person. I just think this story has been told so much better before.
This book was very similar to Fake Like Me, which I liked much more, especially since it got into the specifics of the creation of art.
I appreciated that these women were trying to do something original (as so many of the 70s performance artists were) in a world (still) dominated by men. I appreciated how absence can make someone obsess over the questions left behind by a charismatic and mysterious person. I just think this story has been told so much better before.
This book was very similar to Fake Like Me, which I liked much more, especially since it got into the specifics of the creation of art.
December 28, 2022
4.5 ⭐️ Quite a niche genre, but the novel entrenched in the art world centering a complicated female protagonist just WORKS for me. The other book that immediately comes to mind is Indelicacy by Amina Cain. Both of those two were total surprise pickups, and I LOVE them both. There were so many moments in this book that I really felt I had no choice but to highlight because the writing was so strong. Really great and striking writing and one of the most completely immersive examples of setting I can remember having read-- really puts you in the fucking desert in the 1970s (lol). Would recommend to anyone who follows the female rage/ambivalent female narrator/flighty female protagonist category of book! Only thing that keeps me from making it a full 5 star rating is that some of the commentary on men/feminism/womanhood felt a bit obvious and out of place among an otherwise really strong work. Altogether though, an incredibly strong and compelling novel that feels very unique while simultaneously being able to fit into this female rage genre that is incredibly popular right now.
March 14, 2023
This book focuses on the mystery surrounding an artist's death, which subsequently is backlit by the feminist movement and the marginalisation of women in art in the 70s.
I went into this thinking it would be a thriller, which it wasn't. There was only the tiniest reminiscence of Rebbeca (by Daphne Du Maurier). However, don't let that put you off as this book absolutely held its own.
It was gorgeously written and came across to me as a type of 'self help' guide. It's very thought-provoking, asking questions about our relationships, the universe, but mostly about yourself and what you are capable of.
An emotional read that grabs at your heart.
Absolutely stunning.
I went into this thinking it would be a thriller, which it wasn't. There was only the tiniest reminiscence of Rebbeca (by Daphne Du Maurier). However, don't let that put you off as this book absolutely held its own.
It was gorgeously written and came across to me as a type of 'self help' guide. It's very thought-provoking, asking questions about our relationships, the universe, but mostly about yourself and what you are capable of.
An emotional read that grabs at your heart.
Absolutely stunning.
August 27, 2023
I am a sucker for anything set in the 60’s and 70’s. Especially in LA or San Francisco— I would time travel if I could. Also anything related to artists — actively working on art, galleries, creativity, curation. I was so excited for this book but I found it really fell flat very early on and I couldn’t buy in with the main character, Paz she just felt limp and uninteresting as she floats around the house in Romy’s shadow. I wanted to like this but got really bored of the writing and the characters and shelved it pretty darn quick.
Would happily take req’s for other books in that era — or related to artists creating.
Would happily take req’s for other books in that era — or related to artists creating.
July 22, 2025
This novel follows an artist as she takes on the life — husband and child — of another artist who has died, as she is haunted by the woman who came before her and finds her inescapable in her surroundings, in the art scene which she inhabits, and in the relationships she has adopted. Living in her shadow, she feels insecure with a type of envy and jealousy of the woman who wore her life before. She learns intimacies of the woman who’s gone, through reading the journals she left behind. It is a slow undoing of self as she goes further and further down a path of enquiry about the woman whose place she has taken.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 28, 2022
A fantastic summer read. This book had the atmosphere of Daisy Jones and the Six, but with more character complexity and depravity. Every chapter was filled with sex, drugs, and emotions, made artistic and philosophical in the way that only books set in the 70s can. The writing in this book was fantastic and the character dynamics were captivating.
I decided to give this 4/5 purely because I found it difficult at times to keep up with the events in the story, and I think that some extra clarity and structure would’ve helped.
I decided to give this 4/5 purely because I found it difficult at times to keep up with the events in the story, and I think that some extra clarity and structure would’ve helped.
March 11, 2024
Did she jump or was she pushed?...Artist Romy dies at the age of 29 leaving a baby and Billy her artist husband who fairly promptly marries Paz, who brings up the child.The novel is set in the 1970s against a backdrop of performance art and feminist desire for recognition in the art world.All good so far...but then she had to spoil it all by doing something stupid like...having the now grown up daughter have some sort of chat with her dead mother to try and explain what happened on the roof...Groan.
January 3, 2023
It took me a bit to get into this book. Line by line, the writing is luminous and precise. Written about feminist artists in the 70s, there were some interesting characters and commentary on the period. I think art is really difficult to write about and I think Sopinka has done an excellent job. Although I appreciated the journal interruptions, they sometimes made the events feel a little on the nose. Overall this is a compelling and fresh story.
May 27, 2025
such a mysterious and captivating story of womanhood, motherhood, friendship and what it means to take up space as a female (artist) in male-dominated (art) scenes. this book definitely isn't what i expected, but it was a beautiful read nonetheless! this novel really took my mind somewhere else.
heidi sopinka's writing is an experience: so vivid - it tapped into this secret space inside of me. very thoughtful and special. honourable mention to the female rage i felt while reading this.
heidi sopinka's writing is an experience: so vivid - it tapped into this secret space inside of me. very thoughtful and special. honourable mention to the female rage i felt while reading this.
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