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Art In America: A Novel (2008)

by Ron McLarty(Favorite Author)

3.21 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0670018953 (ISBN13: 9780670018956)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Viking Adult

review 1: Art in America carried a few too many pastel colors for me. I read the Memory of Running (or rather listened to it via audio books) and fell in love with it. I purchased Art in America because I wanted to read more by this author to see if his same creative writing style remained but it fell a bit short for me. Art in America is story of Steven Kearney who is an overweight man who doubts his abilities, talents and self worth (hmmm, sounds like Memory of Running). He takes on a momentous job of writing and directing a play about the history of a town -- to be played by the townspeople. There are some colorful characters (my favorite being the most elderly couple Ticky and Minnie Lettgo)but I just felt I could never really connect with any of them. Throughout the book,... more I just kept feeling like I had read a similar story, that was leading in a similar direction and in the end, had a similar closure as something I had read before. I think it was the author's other book, The Memory of Running. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed that I spent as much time as I did to read basically the same story but in a different setting. Oh well, I can't say I didn't give the author a chance.
review 2: I loved this story, but I had a lot of problems with the execution of the book. McLarty had a habit (bad? In my opinion yes and I hate this when any author does it) of having a running conversation but giving not attribution to which character is speaking. Maybe it's just me but I have a hard time with that. Not to mention a main character (the sherrif)who was always talking to his dead partner and giving way to much backstory on incidental characters. I just think the story would have moved more smoothly without this. The story was great and certain characters I really loved. I think it was worth the read regardless of these issues. less

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