Contradiction Days by Joanna Novak

Contradiction Days by Joanna Novak

For readers of Rachel Cusk and Maggie Nelson, the rapturous memoir of a soon-to-be-mother whose obsession with the reclusive painter Agnes Martin threatens to upend her life

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 her 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 work 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 patronizing tone and disregard of her mental health history, JoAnna instead turns to Martin for guidance, adopting the artist's doctrine of joyful solitude and isolation.

JoAnna heads to Taos, where Martin lived for decades, and gives herself three weeks to 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 JoAnna 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	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781646220762
ISBN 10	1646220765
Title	Contradiction Days
Author	Joanna Novak
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Catapult
Year published	2023-07-25
Number of pages	256
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.