The Colorist [Paperback]

SUSAN DAITCH (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 23, 1990

An imaginative novel about a young woman who works as a colorist at Fantomes Comics and about her comic-book heroine, Electra.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Daitch's ( L.C. ) second novel never stops talking about itself. The title refers to Julie Greene, a melancholy young art school graduate living in New York City's East Village who colors the frames of the comic strip Electra . Julie's every encounter with high or low culture, from Egyptian hieroglyphics to a prostitute's little black book, is a chance to discuss the story she's telling and the way stories are told. When Electra is discontinued, Julie and co-worker Laurel Quan Liu write the strip themselves, turning Electra into an amnesiac wandering through their own troubled neighborhood. As Electra's adventures increasingly resemble Julie's, Laurel accuses her of representing their creation "as if she had no will of her own, or whatever bit of will she did possess was nearly useless." Julie herself remains exhaustingly and inexplicably passive--the meager plot here is driven by chance meetings and unexpected phone calls. Despite some finely wrought insights, Daitch never convinces us that Julie's situation is as inevitable or as unalterable as she wants us to believe.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

As a colorist on a fantasy comic about a Spiderwoman-ish character, Electra, narrator Julie Greene paints a "New York state of mind." Unfortunately, the novel doesn't get much more interesting than that. Julie loses her job and along with friend Laurel scrambles for work, finding only the seamy--renting a call girl's black book and turning a trick--and the illicit, eventually working for Jack Ladder, a reproducer of original artworks bordering on forgery. The novel draws a portrait of struggling graphic artists and freelance photographers, of phantasmagoric New York in all its ill-spendor, but there's an abstraction to the prose, an emphasis on images and on image-making that strives vainly for profundity but is far from compelling. Even the episodes of Electra herself in New York don't save it.
- Peter Bricklebank, City Coll.,
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Vintage; First Edition. pb original edition (August 23, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679729429
• ISBN-13: 978-0679729426
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,578,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Susan Daitch is the author of four works of fiction. Her short fiction has been included in The Norton Anthology of Postmodern Fiction, Tin House, Guernica, Bomb, Conjunctions, McSweeney's, The Brooklyn Rail, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, Ploughshares, The Village Voice, and elswhere. Her work has been the recipient of two Vogelstein awards. Her novel L.C. won an NEA Heritage Award and was a Lannan Foundation Selection. She teaches at Hunter College.