The Petting Zoo by Jim Carroll

The Petting Zoo by Jim Carroll

When poet, musician, and diarist Jim Carroll died in September 2009, he was putting the finishing touches on a potent work of fiction. The Petting Zoo tells the story of Billy Wolfram, an enigmatic thirty-eight-year-old artist who has become a hot star in the late 1980s New York art scene. As the novel opens, Billy, after viewing a show of Velazquez paintings, is so humbled and awed by their spiritual power that he suffers an emotional breakdown and withdraws to his Chelsea loft. In seclusion, Billy searches for the divine spark in his own work and life. Carroll's novel moves back and forth in time to present emblematic moments from Billy's life (his Irish Catholic upbringing, his teenage escapades, his evolution as an artist and meteoric rise to fame) and sharply etched portraits of the characters who mattered most to him, including his childhood friend Denny MacAbee, now a famous rock musician; his mentor, the unforgettable art dealer Max Bernbaum; and one extraordinary black bird. Marked by Carroll's sharp wit, hallucinatory imagery, and street-smart style, The Petting Zoo is a frank, haunting examination of one artist's personal and professional struggles.

Jim Carroll and his family served as missionaries in Kuwait. In 1990 Jim was held hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait during the Iraq invasion. (His real-life story was chronicled in his first book: Faith in Crisis: How God Shows Up When You Need Him Most). Jim is a physician on the faculty at the Medical College of Georgia and an elder at First Presbyterian Church. He and his wife Shirley now live in Augusta, Georgia. They have been married for more than fifty years with eight children and fifteen grandchildren. Because he has worked and traveled extensively in the Middle East, he is able to bring firsthand knowledge of the land and culture to bear in the writing of his gripping Islamic Conflict Trilogy Series. To contact Jim and schedule a speaking engagement and order his other books, go to: www.allfaithsoil.com

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780670022182
ISBN 10	0670022187
Title	The Petting Zoo
Author	Jim Carroll
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Viking Books
Year published	2010-11-04
Number of pages	327
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable