First book of fiction from acclaimed poet Juliana Spahr. Her previous books have received national review attention from the NY Times, Ms. Magazine, Publishers Weekly, The Believer, Chicago Review, Boston Review, Huffington Post, and elsewhere. Book excerpted last year in BOMB Magazine Characters in this book grapple with the role of an artist in modern culture, and will appeal to readers of Shelia Heti's «How Should a Person Be» and Ben Lerner's «Leaving the Atocha Station,» two very popular literary books that cover similar territory. Artists' work in book concerns torture and its aftermath–specifically Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, the ecological crisis, and other timely subject matter, such as Occupy.Novel references and reprints a number of excerpts from Raymond Carver's «What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.» Authors had to obtain permission from Random House to repurpose the content here. Will appeal to readers of the politically-inflected literature of Latin America and Europe, such as Cesair Aira's «An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter» & Roberto Bolano's «The Savage Detectives.»
