Robin Black. (2014). Life Drawing: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group.

Robin Black. 2014. Life Drawing: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group.

Robin Black, Life Drawing: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group, 2014.

Robin Black. Life Drawing: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group, 2014.

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1. • value: rural life
2. • value: literary fiction
3. • value: Psychological Suspense
4. • value: Pennsylvania
5. • value: Fiction
6. • value: novels
7. • value: marriage
8. • value: art
9. • value: Psychological
10. • value: Psychological fiction
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12. • value: Family Saga
13. • value: infidelity
14. • value: literature
15. • value: fiction books
16. • value: contemporary literary fiction
17. • value: marriage fiction
18. • value: psychological literary fiction
19. • value: psychological mystery
20. • value: books for women
21. • value: best selling books for women
22. • value: summer books for women
23. • value: good books for women
24. • value: realistic fiction books
25. • value: best seller books for women
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creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Black, Robin
   • bioText: Robin Black is the author of the critically acclaimed short story collection If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, a finalist for the Frank O’Connor Short Story Prize. Her stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including One Story, Colorado Review, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, O: The Oprah Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and the anthology The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. I. A recipient of fellowships from the Leeway Foundation and the MacDowell Colony, Black was the 2012 Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bryn Mawr College and has taught most recently in the Brooklyn College MFA Program. She lives with her family in Philadelphia.
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Life Drawing

fullDescription

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR
“Taut, elegant . . . Black is a writer of great wisdom.”—Claire Messud, The Guardian (UK)
Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.
Augusta Edelman—Gus to her friends—is a painter, a wife, and not always the best judge of her own choices—one of them bad enough that she and her husband, Owen, have fled their longtime city home and its reminders of troubling events. Now, three years into their secluded country life, Gus works daily on the marriage she nearly lost, discovers new inspiration for her art, and contemplates the mysteries of a childhood tragedy. But this quiet, healing rhythm is forever shattered one hot July day when a stranger moves into the abandoned house next door and crosses more boundaries than just those between their lands. A fierce, honest, and moving portrait of a woman grappling with her fate, Life Drawing is a debut novel as beautiful and unsparing as the human heart.
 
Praise for Life Drawing
 
“The page-turning suspense of Robin Black’s novel comes from her beautiful, honest portrait of a marriage, of a life. . . . A novel of consequence, and a stunning one.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Gripping . . . the power of this story is how it illuminates, in utterly compelling detail, the complex give-and-take of a couple trying to save their marriage.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
 
“Truly brilliant . . . [Black] is that rare writer whose gift for prose is matched by her mastery of the other elements that make a great novel. . . . [Her] psychological prowess and incisive observations lend an edge even to seemingly straightforward scenes.”—Chicago Tribune
 
“Races to its resolution . . . Black’s writing is clear and direct [with] observations about the way people relate that resonate well after the book is closed.”—The New York Times Book Review

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: The Sunday Times (London)
   • content: "Suffused with a remarkably sustained emotional intensity . . . Every intimate contour of the couple's relationship is mapped by Black with devastating accuracy. Full of insight into the fragility of marriage, this is a memorable read."
2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 3, 2014
     A middle-aged married couple, their new friend, and her daughter interact, sometimes stormily, in this emotionally complex novel from Black (If I Loved You I Would Tell You This). Beginning with the information that one of these characters is now dead, the book draws the reader in from the first page and builds narrative tension almost ceaselessly to the bitter end. Owen and Augusta, a writer and a painter, respectively, have retreated from their former cosmopolitan life in Philadelphia to a rural idyll in a farmhouse, hoping to devote themselves to their work. Soon, however, a neighbor, Alison Hemmings, moves into a nearby rental. At first, Augusta and Alison get along famously, but then Alison’s early-20s daughter, Nora, arrives for a visit and becomes infatuated with Owen. The situation threatens to reopen old wounds— Augusta previously had an affair with the father of one of her art students. Added tension accrues when Alison’s violent ex-husband, Paul, appears, creating a situation that eventually boils over. Black’s characters are three-dimensional, and her depiction of their relationships, particularly between the two women, is masterly. An astute inquiry into relationships and betrayal, this novel is nerve-wracking yet irresistibly readable.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     June 1, 2014
     The first novel from short story writer Black (If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, 2010) tries to parse the intimacy, love, betrayals and resentments that comprise any long relationship.From the first sentences, it's clear that narrator Gus (short for Augusta) is writing after her husband Owen's death, although the novel covers his last months. Together since their 20s, painter Gus, now 47, and 51-year-old writer Owen didn't feel the need to marry until a few years ago, when the relationship was rocked by Gus' brief affair-an affair she blames on her distress over Owen's inability to father children. When the affair ended, she confessed all to Owen and they recommitted to each other. For the last two years, the couple, now legally joined, has lived in happy near isolation on a small farmstead somewhere outside Philadelphia. When middle-aged divorcee Alison moves in next door, she disrupts their Eden, already fraught with marital tension; despite her avowals of deep intimacy with Owen, Gus resents the fact that his writer's block means she can't discuss her work with him and she obviously can't mention the emails she's been getting from a former art student who happens to be her ex-lover's daughter. Drawing away from Owen, Gus spends increasing time with Alison, an aspiring painter whose husband abused her. The women discuss art, but Gus also starts confiding in Alison about Owen in ways that feel like a second betrayal. Then Alison's daughter Nora shows up. Gus, whose own mother died when she was a small child, is jealous of their mother-daughter intimacy. She also senses that Nora, an aspiring writer who admires Owen's books, is a sexual threat.Black captures the nooks and crannies of Gus' psyche, both self-aware and self-justifying, but doesn't allow poor Owen space to breathe; her narrow focus, while often acutely insightful, makes for a claustrophobic reading experience.

     COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     January 1, 2014
     

     Gus, the narrator of Black's first novel, is a painter and is married to Owen, a writer. The couple left Philadelphia to live in a farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania where there are no neighbors, only a vacant house nearby. For almost three years, they live in solitude, content with each other and their art. When a woman named Alison moves into the empty house, Gus realizes that she is not just alone but lonely. Gus and Alison become fast friends, and Gus confides in Alison, sharing her doubts and worries about her marriage. This intimate friendship is disrupted when Alison's daughter, Nora, an aspiring writer, comes to visit. Nora is smitten with Owen and oblivious to the effect her infatuation is having on the others. VERDICT While there is a great deal of emotional conflict here, it is never overdone. Gus is known for her precision as an artist, and this quality is evident in her narration; her clear and efficient voice undergirds the novel's lack of melodrama. The focus on friendship and family will appeal to fans of women's fiction, while the role creativity plays in the lives of the characters will attract readers of literary fiction.--Pamela Mann, St. Mary's Coll. Lib., MD

     Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     May 1, 2014
     Gus, a painter, and Owen, a writer, have retreated from their cosmopolitan life in Philadelphia for a quiet life in the country in a beautiful old farmhouse. They crave the solitude in part because of Gus' affair with the father of one of her students. But then a new neighbor, Alison, upsets the couple's fragile peace. Gus, realizing that she has been lonely, confides to Alison not only the details of her affair but also her frustration with Owen's recent bout of writer's block. When Alison's beautiful daughter, Nora, develops an infatuation with Owen, the couple's marriage is threatened once again. In her debut novel, Black (If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, 2010) skillfully conveys the way a long-term relationship can so easily shift between love and affection and a petty tallying of old hurts and disappointments. In addition, she delivers a hair-raising portrait of a poisonous female friendship. Full of emotional turmoil yet subtle in its effect, this elegant novel is sure to draw in both women's-fiction and literary-fiction fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     February 1, 2014
     

     Having grabbed out attention with the story collection If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, Black returns with a debut novel about a couple living the good, creative life in the country--she's a painter, he's a writer--when an alluring British woman moves into the house next door and disrupts everything. Pitched to the Lorrie Moore, Amy Bloom, and Mary Gaitskill crowds.

     Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR
“Taut, elegant . . . Black is a writer of great wisdom.”—Claire Messud, The Guardian (UK)
Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.
Augusta Edelman—Gus to her friends—is a painter, a wife, and not always the best judge of her own choices—one of them bad enough that she and her husband, Owen, have fled their longtime city home and its reminders of troubling events. Now, three years into their secluded country life, Gus works daily on the marriage she nearly lost, discovers new inspiration for her art, and contemplates the mysteries of a childhood tragedy. But this quiet, healing rhythm is forever shattered one hot July day when a stranger moves into the abandoned house next door and crosses more boundaries than just those between their lands. A fierce, honest, and moving portrait of a woman...

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