by Alan Isler
First published 2017
Cyril Entwistle built his reputation painting Holocaust horrors after the war, but now the celebrated artist spends his final years as an antisemite who despises Israel. He commissions Stan Kops, a world-renowned biographer specializing in dead English painters, to write his life story. Writer Robin Sinclair narrates these events, carrying his own complicated history with both men. Sinclair's mother once served as Entwistle's lover and model during the artist's most productive period. Sinclair has known Kops for forty years. All three men find themselves captivated by the seductive Saska Tarnopol. As Sinclair recounts the intricate developments in their intertwined lives, he reveals both what he witnessed firsthand over decades and what he can only guess at. The story explores how memory shapes the facts that become history and biography.
Genres: art, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, biographical-fiction, 21st-century, antisemitism
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: England
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
342 pages · Hardcover · Knizhniki