Synopses & Reviews
Advance praise for "The American Painter Emma Dial is wicked, subversive, satirical, sophisticated, and deep. Its thematic undertones echo down the gallery of the underling-overthrowing story with fresh and brilliant new notes."--Kate Christensen, author of "This is the novel about New York's art world I have always wanted to read. It is sexy, smart, super-cool. Samantha Peale has done the near-impossible."--Gary Shteyngart, author of "This book is electric, charged with sexual desire, ambition, power, and terrific writing. I read it from start to finish in an afternoon, a guilty pleasure."--Ann Hood, author of " is a racy, muscular, enlightening beauty of a novel. Samantha Peale captures the lusty entanglements of a virtuoso painter at large in Miami and New York with aplomb. Read her book."--James McManus, author of "This is a nervy, intelligent book about the hazards of being creative, brilliant, and female in the New York art world. Samantha Peale's inside knowledge of painting and painters, her deft writing and unsentimental eye make this novel riveting and revelatory. A pleasure."--Michelle Huneven, author of
Review
"The author's writing is lean and powerful, with passages that cut to Emma's core and incrementally move the story into deeper emotional terrain....a more than impressive debut, with a complicated, vulnerable central character who's courageously living out the universal creative struggle....it's a graceful personal journey, an intimate snapshot of a young woman at a seminal point in her life, on the brink of either discovering her true self or becoming unhinged." Deborah Vankin
Review
"Emma is a fully developed character, a smart young woman who must choose between an easy pass into a world of excitement and glamour and the hard work and heavy risk of personal achievement." Barbara Fisher
Review
Peale's unapologetic style feels bold and genuine. --Shaunna Hunter
Review
[A] splendid first novel....A wonderful achievement, The American Painter Emma Dial is a novel that should have broad appeal—a treat for both the artist of any medium and the general reader. --Ron Slate
Synopsis
'A racy, muscular, enlightening beauty of a novel.' '"James McManusBrilliant but pragmatic Emma Dial has found a way to survive in the high-stakes New York art world'"she is the trusted assistant to Michael Freiburg, a famous and controversial painter. Michael develops ideas for paintings, but it is Emma who applies the paint to canvas. And despite two decades" difference in age, the two are also lovers. As Emma becomes worn down by Michael"s schizophrenic affection and by guilt over her own neglected work, her striking looks and virtuosity catch the eye of another powerful painter, Philip Cleary. Respected, fearless, and charismatic, Philip compels Emma to emerge from her isolating serfdom in Michael"s self-obsessed world and become a painter in her own right. Samantha Peale writes with astonishing insight about a young woman who risks everything to fulfill her ambitions as an artist.
'This is the novel about New York"s art world I have always wanted to read.' '"Gary Shteyngart
Synopsis
"A racy, muscular, enlightening beauty of a novel." --James McManus
Synopsis
Emma Dial is a virtuoso painter who executes the works of Michael Freiburg, a preeminent figure in the New York art world. She has a sensuous and exacting hand, hips like a matador, and long neglected ambitions of her own. She spends her days completing a series of pictures for Freiburg's spring exhibition and her nights drinking and dining with friends and luminaries. Into this landscape walks Philip Cleary, Emma's longtime painting hero and a colleague and rival of her boss. Philip Cleary represents the ideal artistic existence, a respected painter, fearless and undeterred by fashion. He is unmatched by anyone from Emma's generation. Except, just possibly, Emma herself. Emma Dial must choose between the security of being a studio assistant to a renowned painter and the unknown future as an artist in her own right.
Samantha Peale writes with astonishing insight about a young woman who risks everything to fulfill her ambitions as an artist.
Synopsis
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About the Author
Samantha Peale lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two sons.