The Art of Seeing: A Novel [Hardcover]

Cammie McGovern (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 30, 2002

A mesmerizing and intimate literary debut about the complex relationship between two sisters and the personal ramifications of fame, from the recipient of many fiction awards and a Stegner Fellowship.

In this deeply resonant first novel, Cammie McGovern chronicles the intertwined lives of sisters, from childhood through adulthood. Rozzie is flamboyant, brooding, and beautiful, a star in her younger sister Jemma's eyes even when they are still children. When Rozzie becomes an actress, and, as a teenager wins a part in a major motion picture, life changes irrevocably for both sisters. Rozzie is catapulted into the adult world of celebrity and the inevitable attention it brings. Jemma follows, traveling to movie sets, befriending other actors, relishing her sister's fame, never seeing the strain it puts on Rozzie.

Only when Jemma beings to develop her own artistic ambitions, and Rozzie is forced to reveal the secret she has kept from her family for years -- she is suffering from a dangerous eye disease and may lose her sight -- does Jemma begin to see the truths about her sister that threaten the delicate balance of their relationship. Written by the sister of actress Elizabeth McGovern, The Art of Seeing is a masterfully crafted and absorbing novel about the nature of celebrity and visibility, and the powerful and enduring connection between sisters and families.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A surprising novel of sisterhood, The Art of Seeing hinges on the twin cataclysms of fame and disability. Jemma is the half-adoring, half-resentful younger sister of Rozzie, a difficult girl with a flair for the dramatic, who startles her family by becoming a movie actress and minor celebrity while still in high school. Everywhere Jemma can go in life, it seems that Rozzie has already been there. That Rozzie has been concealing severe problems with her vision and will eventually be plunged into blindness while on a movie set seems to promise only a reversal of roles, with Jemma becoming the stronger and more capable sister: the sister with a future. This is the classic stuff of sibling relations and the reason that the first half of Cammie McGovern's novel, however well-crafted, is somewhat predictable. But readers who stay the course will be rewarded by the ever-more-intricate spirals of the second half of this thoughtful debut, which calls to mind the close-focus writing of Amy Bloom. The author, incidentally, is the younger sister of actress Elizabeth McGovern, which may have helped in her deft, undazzled depiction of the movie world. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly

This first novel, by the sister of movie actress Elizabeth McGovern, may be narrated by the sister of a movie actress, but it doesn't read like a roman … clef; the scenes around the movie sets on which Rozzie has become a star as a teenager are oddly muted and unrevealing, while the inner life of narrator Jemma carries the book. Jemma is alternately envious and anxious about Rozzie's celebrity, and when she begins to nourish ambitions of her own as a photographer she is tempted to use that celebrity to further her own career. The situation becomes even more emotionally complicated as Rozzie begins to go blind and her movie-star existence starts to crumble. McGovern has an effectively deadpan, rather oblique style and offers some trenchant psychological insights into sibling relationships, but the book's ever-shifting time frame makes it difficult to follow the progress of Rozzie's decline, and it seems preposterous that her growing blindness is for much of the time a well-kept secret. Jemma's photography, too, becomes enmeshed in improbable psychodrama as she replaces some of her pictures in her first-ever show at the last moment, armed with nothing but a screwdriver. The emphasis on visualization throughout the book is sometimes compelling, but the narrative framework on which it is hung is flimsy.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 283 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1st edition (July 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743228359
• ISBN-13: 978-0743228350
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,482,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cammie McGovern was awarded a creative writing fellowship at Stanford University, and has received numerous prizes for her short fiction. Her stories have appeared in many magazines including Glamour, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook and Seventeen , and she is the author of another novel, The Art of Seeing . She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts with her husband and three children, the eldest of whom is autistic. She is one of the founders of Whole Children, a resource center that runs after-school classes and programs for children with special needs.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, complex, and impossible to put down, August 1, 2002

By 

toastliker (Studio City, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Seeing: A Novel (Hardcover)

This wonderful book draws you in from the opening page and doesn't let you go. I was constantly amazed at Ms. McGovern's seemingly effortless ability to weave together the smallest details and observations until they add up to something moving and even astounding. The way these two complex and incredibly well-drawn sisters know each other and at the same time refuse to know each other - and themselves - is both maddening and remarkably true to life. Perhaps the most brilliant turn of all here is the ending - not contrived or sensationalist but deeply, movingly satisfying.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sisters and their Discontents........, July 22, 2002

By 

Jenny Greenfield (Northampton, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Seeing: A Novel (Hardcover)

McGovern not only understands sisters and how they love and hate each other, she can WRITE (and what a relief that is these days). Her story grabs you and pulls you along, but not so quickly that you miss the craft, sensitivity, and humor that makes this book what it is. Everyone who has a sister or knows someone who does should read this -- more than once. Terrific first novel -- can't wait for McGovern's second.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Seeing" illuminates elusive, mysterious sisters' bond, August 15, 2003

By 

Bruce J. Wasser (Lake Bluff, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Art of Seeing: A Novel (Hardcover)

Recently, I had the occasion to observe a stunning sculpture with a perceptive friend who commented on its graceful lines and delicate interplay between light and shadow. This sensitive, eloquent commentary bespoke an understanding not only of art, but of life itself. It it a gift of seeing, and it is exploring that gift which constitutes the challenge and triumph of Cammie McGovern's exquisite "The Art of Seeing." Her debut novel traces the evolution of the troubled and nuanced relationship between two talented and tormented sisters, equally troubled by the limits and possibilities of their own vision. McGovern's insights are subtle and quiet, their strength owing to the complexities of her character's personalities and the painful interplay betweem them. "Seeing" resonates with truths, not the least of which is that love often exists between people despite the mistakes they make with and for each other.

Jemma, the youngest of the sisters, labors suggestively in the shadow of her older sister Rozzie. Begrudingly acquiesing to subordinate status, Jemma, at five years of age, realizes that she is "a pathway to my sister's approval" and "as easy as breathing" determines to accept this role. Alienated and sensitive to her differences (both outside and inside her family), Rozzie exploits Jemma's willingness to do "whatever is required to ensure...she will never be truly seen again." The two develop a balance based on misgiving, silence and perceived acceptance of role; in reality, both envision themselves intertwined with the other in a complicated mathematics of expectation, subservience and dependence. Although as an actress Rozzie appears distanced and detached, Jemma's choice of photography as a means of artistic expression requires identical traits.

The metaphor of vision haunts both sisters. As Rozzie loses her sight, she fights the very invisibility she affected. Jemma's photography tends to focus on isolation and periphery, and as she begins to study the dynamics of her relationship with her sister, ruefully admits that in her own way, "I am missing too." If clarity sets humans free, both Jemma and Rozzie have built walls, shutting down their capacity to see themselves and each other as authentic people. Both women, talented in portrait and interpretation, lack the art of seeing their own hearts. This terrible irony lends a tragic tint to their relationship, but to McGovern's credit, the author does not exploit it for sentimental purposes. Instead, the author encourages her characters to use their deficiencies as the basis for renewal and change.

Consequently, Cammie McGovern elects to challenge readers to reflect on the limits of their own observations. Have we unfairly sided with either of the two sisters? Are we blinded by our own perceptions? What must people do to attain a sense of artistry in their own sight? Jemma and Rozzie quietly grapple with not only their own individual artistic imperatives; they use their talents to retrain their hearts. "The Art of Seeing" becomes its title, a work of art that permits us a clearer vision of ourselves.