Also Rising [Paperback]

Windsor Joe Innis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 4, 2000

(Innis) balanced yet stirring description of the bullfight becomes the subtext for his sensitive depiction of the life of a dedicated artist.Publishers Weekly Amusing portrait of the artist as an earnest schlemiel, leavened with an ironic, Hemingwayesque admiration of its south-of-the-boarder setting...brilliantly executed.Kirkus Reviews Finely drawn with a cunning display of detail and internal emotional conflicts, this bittersweet tale...reveals much of the inner nature of human courage, love and ambition.The Dallas Morning News

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

It is the Vietnam era, and Isaac, a painter, has found a job teaching sculpture at an American art colony in central Mexico. After a long dry spell, his life is looking up, and he is experiencing a wonderful creative flow. Trouble comes in the form of Heinrich: an egotistical and powerfully successful New York postexpressionist who has made a career out of painting stripes over other artists' masterpieces. The antipathy between the two comes to a head at a party when Isaac, in trying to describe the artistry at the heart of bullfighting (which Heinrich has been demeaning), is maneuvered into accepting an invitation to demonstrate his skills the next weekend. Even if he can survive the contest, he will have to deal with an enemy with the power to destroy his career. Full of humor and insight, Innis' story brings together some of the best aspects of contemporary American fiction in its exploration of what it means to find art in life, and life in art. Eric Robbins --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

Choppy postmodern backward glance at Hemingwayesque bullfighting ethos, recast as a macho conflict between artists in southern Mexico. First-novelist/Artist's Magazine columnist Innis can't help but feel sorry for Isaac Sherderval, a struggling Impressionist painter who, in 1970, takes a teaching gig at an American art school in southern Mexico in order to forget his failed marriage- -as well as his forgettable songwriting day job. But what begins as a quaint, American-in-paradox, fish-out-of-water tale in the scenic if sorry town of San Miguel de Allende soon becomes a mano a mano contest between Sherderval and Heinrich Guerber, a German-born pop artist who's achieved wealth and notoriety among the New York art crowd by painting over works by well-known French and American Impressionists. Guerber, who's making a triumphal return to his alma mater, tells Sherderval that he finds only cruelty and barbarity in bullfighting--whereupon Sherderval counters by praising it as a solemn, vital cultural ritual that resonates with his own artistic endeavors. The two agree to try the cape before inexperienced bulls at a nearby ranch, with the prize being Guerber's slender, model-beautiful girlfriend Memori. In a brilliantly executed scene, Guerber suffers an easy success but lacks the courage to go up against a formidable beast. And Sherderval embarrasses, then redeems himself, not through courage, but through a series of accidents that inadvertently express his romantic indifference to danger. Sherderval's fling with Memori and Innis's message--that artists need unequal portions of solitude, historical tradition, and appreciation--are forgotten when sore-losing Guerber falsely accuses Sherderval of harboring drugs. Sherderval flees with his windy artist friend Sturgeon Boswell, who prattles on about what is or isn't good for artists and saves Sherderval from a fate worse than marriage. Amusing, pretentiously anti-pretentious, portrait of the artist as an earnest schlemiel, leavened with an ironic, Hemingwayesque admiration of its south-of-the-border setting. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 268 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (December 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595152007
• ISBN-13: 978-0595152001
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,339,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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