The Pain Of Artists

Joan Acocella, cultural critic and staff writer for The New Yorker, has collected some of her essays into one volume, Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints. And what's the theme? “My concern is the pain that came with the art-making, interfering with it, and how the artist dealt with this. Insofar as this collection of essays has a subject, that is it.” Her artists include Saul Bellow and Philip Roth (her review of The Plot Against America is here) and the two saints she's chosen are Mary Magdalene and Joan of Arc. Sounds like a book worth reading.