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| Glimmerglass, now in pre-order Out in a week... Interior vignette by Clive Hicks-Jenkins More comments, art, etc. here |
Jot of praise
I know of no writer other than Marly Youmans who has the genius to combine the spine-tingling suspense of Gothic storytelling with the immense charm, grace, glamour, realism, and simplicity of Hawthorne. Youmans, one of the biggest secrets of contemporary American fiction, writes with freshness and beauty. Her ability to describe a person, a place, or the psychological underpinnings of a plot or individual, ranks with the great novelists, the highest literature.
--excerpt from comments by poet Jeffery Beam
About the art
Glimmerglass is strewn throughout with descriptions of the flora and fauna of an observed landscape. But like the Arabian Nights storyteller, Marly spins tales within tales that access altogether more fabulous topographies, and it’s as though the sea-serpent door-knockers and griffin-embellished wrought-iron gates of the real world, have been markers of hidden realms paralleling the everyday. Bearing in mind I’m a man who reveres the great eighteenth century wood-engraver Thomas Bewick, it was a foregone conclusion that when I came to consider decorations for the chapter headings and tailpieces of this wonderful book, I’d be moved to create a miniature naturalis historia.The images are collages pieced together from paper worked with brushes and paint, pen and ink, crayon and frottage. They reference the interior decorations made for Thaliad, though are simpler and bolder in design and execution.--Clive Hicks-Jenkins
I can't wait! I know I keep saying that, but it's true. Also, why aren't there more illustrated books these days? I know, money. But still.
ReplyDeleteGood. I hope you like it--entirely, radically different from the last. As usual.
DeleteI'm taking your book with me when I go South. Finally shall read! Well, I might read it before that if life will only let up a bit. If.