Contradiction Days by Joanna Novak

Contradiction Days by Joanna Novak

Five months pregnant and struggling with a creative block, JoAnna Novak becomes obsessed with the enigmatic Abstract Expressionist painter Agnes Martin. She is drawn to the contradictions in Martin's life as well as art - the soft and exacting brushstrokes she employs for grid-like compositions that are both rigid and dreamy. But what most calls to JoAnna is Martin's dedication to her art in the face of paranoid schizophrenia. Uneasy with the changes her pregnant body is undergoing, JoAnna relapses into damaging old habits and thought patterns. When she confides in her doctor that she's struggling with depression and suicidal ideation, he tells her she must stop being so selfish, given she has a baby on the way, and start taking antidepressants. Appalled by his patronising tone and disregard of her mental health history, JoAnna instead makes a deal with herself: she'll surrender to her obsession with Agnes Martin and adopt the painter's doctrine of joyful solitude and isolation; if she fails, she'll comply and go on antidepressants. JoAnna rents a house in Taos and gives herself three weeks to dedicate herself to Martin's work and model her hermetic existence: phone off, email off, no talking to her husband, no touching the dog. Out of a deep, solitary engagement with a remarkable artist's body of work emerges an entirely new way for her to relate to the contradictions of her own body and face up to the joys and challenges of impending motherhood.

Novak, Joanna: - JoAnna Novak is the author of the novel I Must Have You and the book-length poem Noirmania. Her work has appeared widely, in publications including The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, BOMB, Slate, and Guernica. She is a founding editor of Tammy, a literary journal and press.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781646220762
ISBN 10	1646220765
Titel	Contradiction Days
Autor	Joanna Novak
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Hardback
Verlag	Catapult
Erscheinungsjahr	2023-07-25
Seitenanzahl	256
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.