Synopses & Reviews
In Joanna Scott's breakthrough novel the Austrian artist Egon Schiele comes to prismatic life in a narrative that defies convention, history, and identity. A self-professed genius and student of August Klimt, Scott's Schiele repeatedly challenges the boundaries of early twentieth-century Europe. Thrown in jail on charges of immorality, Schiele's Mephistophelean reputation only grows in stature until at the age of twenty-eight, the artist dies in the Great Flu Pandemic. Told from a crosscurrent of voices, viewpoints and times, this stunning novel won Scott a nomination for the 1991 PEN/Faulkner Award.
Review
"Diverse narrative voices and shifting chronological perspectives create a potentially confusing structure; yet this story is so intriguing, and Scott's richly textured style so mesmerizing, that one is completely captivated....A dazzling, disturbing collage of a novel." Elise Chase, Library Journal
Review
"A haunting success...a dazzling literary performance." The Washington Post
Review
"Joanna Scott's literary material...are deployed in sensuous, provocative patterns. They resound with rich experiences and intriguing perceptions." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Arrogance, beyond the sheer brilliance of Scott's handling of disparate voices, changing milieus and tangled dates... manages to portray with skill and candor the imaginations, desires, and fears of people whose stories are as timely and important as todays headlines." San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"Arrogance is a vivid, galvanizing exploration of the shaping of an artist soul. Joanna Scott knows from the inside what most onlookers can at best guess about. She's insightful, just, and tough." Frederick Busch
About the Author
Joanna Scott is the author of seven books of fiction, including the novels Tourmaline and The Manikin. She is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Lannan Award, and lives with her family in Rochester, New York.