Beauty Is Convulsive
Carole Maso
(Author)
Description
Maso's incantatory description of her conjured-up subject's embrace takes on extraordinary power . . . Like Frida Kahlo's painting--impossible to look away from. --Kai Maristed, Los Angeles TimesAt the age of eighteen, Frida Kahlo's life was transformed when the bus in which she was riding was hit by a trolley car. Pierced through by a steel handrail and broken in many places, she entered a long period of convalescence during which she began to paint self-portraits.
A vibrant series of prose poems, Beauty Is Convulsive is a passionate meditation on Frida Kahlo, one of the twentieth century's most compelling artists. Carole Maso brings together pieces from Kahlo's biography, her letters, medical documents, and her diaries to assemble a text that is as erotic, mysterious, and colorful as one of Kahlo's paintings.
Product Details
Price
$29.95
Publisher
Counterpoint LLC
Publish Date
October 12, 2002
Pages
180
Dimensions
5.7 X 8.98 X 0.75 inches | 0.78 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9781582430898
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Carole Maso is the author of ten books: Ghost Dance, The Art Lover, AVA, The American Woman in the Chinese Hat, Defiance, Aureole, Break Every Rule, The Room Lit by Roses, Beauty Is Convulsive, and Mother & Child. She has received numerous awards, including the Berlin Prize and the Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction. Maso is currently a professor of Literary Arts at Brown University.
Reviews
Praise for Beauty is Convulsive A Chicago Review of Books Best Book of the Month Maso's incantatory description of her conjured-up subject's embrace takes on extraordinary power . . . like Frida Kahlo's painting--impossible to look away from. --Kai Maristed, Los Angeles Times Maso repeatedly cites Rivera's description of Kahlo's art as ascetic and tender, hard as steel and fire and delicate as a butterfly's wing, adorable as a beautiful smile and profound and cruel as life's bitterness. Without a doubt, one might apply these same words to Maso's precise and poetic prose, which brims with emotion, imagination, intelligence, and beauty. --Trey Strecker, Review of Contemporary Fiction An utter original, one of the true and plangent voices in American writing. --Mary Gordon, author of There Your Heart Lies [A] consistently inventive writer. Maso's prose has generated wide respect, making this an important purchase for libraries with literary fiction collections. --Carolyn Kuebler, Library Journal There's been more than enough written on Kahlo to fill bookstore display tables. This . . . may be one of the best. --Publishers Weekly Maso, a highly original writer, distills her contemplation of Kahlo's indelible paintings and vital diaries and letters into a supple, discerning, and haunting prose poem, a biographical meditation that elegantly charts Kahlo's epic resiliency, artistic daring, unrelenting suffering, soul-saving 'sense of the ridiculous, ' and glorious defiance. Maso's spare yet lyric tribute, a genuine communion, is a welcome antidote to the mawkishness and sensationalism that is starting to blur our appreciation for Kahlo's pioneering art and incandescent spirit. --Donna Seaman, Booklist
