Customer Reviews

Crosspoints: A Novel of Choice

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This is a marvelous love story-and an exciting novel of ideas. An unsophisticated, idealistic archaeologist, Tara Niforous, falls in love-or thinks she does-with Leon Skillman, a potentially great sculptor who seems to embody her ideals. In fact, he has betrayed his soul, becoming a vicious, opportunistic cynic. Meanwhile, Tara's long-time mentor, the noble but aloof Dimitrios, realizes that he himself is in love with her. The action moves from an exciting underwater dive off the Greek islands to the corrupt, intellectually bankrupt New York "art" scene-and to a showdown in which Tara finally sees what kind of "sculpture" Leon has been spewing out.

This is a richly imagined novel. Alexandra York is a vivid stylist, and probes her multi-layered characters deeply, taking us inside their minds with enormous technical skill. She also understands how the choices we make affect our lives-as we stand at "crosspoints" (Tara's immigrant father's insightful confusion of "crossroads" and "turning points").

The first 9 chapters appeared (under the title "Becoming") in the "Atlantean Press Review," a showcase for writers inspired by Ayn Rand's literary legacy. Ms. York is now the third of the Review's authors to see their completed novel in print-preceded by Edward Cline's "Sparrowhawk" and Andrew Bernstein's "Heart of a Pagan."

Writing a good novel of ideas is a challenging task. The characters and events must be meaningful. They must also be exciting; one must never forget that one is writing fiction, not a treatise. As Ayn Rand said, the function of art is not to teach, but to show. But if a writer uses characters merely as vehicles for ideas-if he sacrifices them to some message he wants to convey-if he piles ideas on their backs like hods on a hod-carrier-the result may be closer to a tract than a novel. (That, sadly, was the case with "Heart of a Pagan.")

As Miss Rand observed: "... abstract ideas are proper in fiction only when they are subordinated to the story. Not when the story is artificially devised to expound some thesis. That is why propaganda writers fail. That is why propaganda stories are always so false and dull." ("Letters," p. 159)

Alexandra York's focus is where it should be-on story-telling-at least 90% of the time. Halfway through "Crosspoints" I did find it was getting too preachy; the characters were talking (albeit beautifully) at greater length about art than the story warranted. And I cringed at the name Ms. York inflicted on her art gallery-a heavy-handed borrowing from the world of "Atlas Shrugged." I winced when one of her minor characters started lecturing about Aristotle. (Fortunately, the other characters cut him off.) Admirers of Ayn Rand's novels would do well to note how seldom Miss Rand mentions or refers to Aristotle in her own fiction (as opposed to non-fiction); three of her four novels do not mention the great philosopher even a single time! Her magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged," refers to him only 3 times in more than a thousand pages.

Fortunately, "Crosspoint"'s occasional faults are far outweighed by its virtues. It is full of exciting plot twists, as well as dramatic insights about the role of art in life-an issue about which Ms. York, a prime mover in today's revival of romantic, representational art-knows a great deal. This book deserves to be the # 2 bestseller-right after Ed Cline's "Sparrowhawk."

My favorite art gallery displays only "romantic realism." I call it a place of refuge because I know I will only find beauty there. I can let down my guard -- the guard against ugliness and irrationality that I have to maintain in today's world. That's how I feel about "Crosspoints." You can be sure that although there will be startling plot twists, you need never be on guard. Beauty and rationality and achievement are held up as ideals, and while there are a couple of sordid scenes, they are there only for contrast and realism. This novel approaches Rand's "Fountainhead" in its integration of a gripping plot with an intense philosophical message.

For well over a half century there has been nothing new in literature to rival the sheer aesthetic wonder of Ayn Rand's novel THE FOUNTAINHEAD. Until now. Alexandra York's CROSSPOINTS follows the grand Romantic Realist tradition and expands upon it with a profound work that's sure to delight any reader who can appreciate an intricate and important plot developed through masterful use of language.

CROSSPOINTS tells the story of the beautiful young Greek-American marine archaeologist Tara Niforous and the two extraordinary men who love her. The first is her renowned Greek mentor Dimitrios Kokonas. The other is Leon Skillman, a celebrated American sculptor. Although she is attracted to both men in different ways at different times, she ultimately has to chose only one.

Within this basic dramatic structure there emerges a novel so rich and dense in both characterization and plotting that its depths are truly astounding. In viewing the love triangle of the main characters we are also presented with searing portraits of everything from contemporary New York's 'post-modern' art world to classical Greek antiquities, from wild scenes of sexual abandon to those of touching family life, from the luxurious dwellings of the super-rich to the plain studios of working artists. This is decidedly a novel of ideas--a novel of conflicting values and philosophies, yet it is also an exciting and entertaining story of larger-than-life characters making crucial real-life choices in exotic settings.

For those weary readers who have ceased to enjoy most of what's written today, this novel will be a welcome surprise. Its printed pages come alive with amazing visual imagery and sensuous details that continually advance the story in a fresh voice that's both intellectually and emotionally satisfying. CROSSPOINTS is quite simply the finest work of fiction yet produced in the 21st Century. It's also a promise of things to come--a brilliant first novel in what should become a brilliantly stunning fiction career.

--Bill Danks,
author of PROMETHEUS REBOUNDS

Here's a novel destined to become a true classic. Incredibly rich and complex in plot with some of the best drawn characters ever seen, it's simultaneously a deeply philosophical novel of ideas and a fast paced, exciting, and sexy love story that can be read over and over again.This book is extremely hard to put down and absolutely impossible to forget. A moving experience in every way.

It is rare for me to find a book that I love reading, but I loved reading Crosspoints. Many parts were moving to me. The heroes are noble, like the Greek statues the archeologist heroine searches for on ocean floors. They pursue their happiness with passion, style, and remarkable wisdom about life, love, and art. This book shows what "living large" really is about.

Though I would not rank it as high as the novels of Ayn Rand and perhaps a few other classics, I know of no other novel by a living author as deserving as Crosspoints is of five stars.

...you will like this book. For those of you looking for a new way to feed your Ayn Rand fix, this book does its job.

It's a solid romance novel with important ideas about individuality, morality and art.

Whether you like Rand or not, the discussions and ideas about art in this book make it a must read for any artist of art aficionado.

The person who said this was a harlequin romance novel was an idiot. This is a great book. Do yourself a favor and buy it and read it.

CROSSPOINTS by Alexandra York blends the greatness of Ancient Greece with the mixed premises of modern New York. It portrays heroes, villains and middle-of-the-roaders-all in convincing fashion.

The plot, theme, characterization and style are all first-rate. You feel like you are right there, in the story, going through what the characters are going through. It is thrilling enough to want to read quickly and deep enough to make you slow down and ponder the fundamental ideas presented.

The heroine Tara has the kind of idealism and beauty not seen in today's literature--and is certainly the kind of woman I'd love to meet. Bravo!

Inspiring in its Romantic Realism, this is truly a novel of ideas that dramatizes how choice preceeds human action.

At last, a really good Romantic Realist novel fully in keeping with the spirit of Ayn Rand's fiction. I finished it yesterday and have been missing Ms. York's world and characters all day.
More than a story about the art world, this was a story about life and what is most required to live it well: an objective, reasoning mind and the courage to act on it's conclusions.
An excellent first novel. I can't wait to read Ms. York's next one.

This is a "Wow!" book, hard work, not because it is excellent literature, for there are tons of other books also well written, or merely because it has a fluid and gripping plot to make it most entertaining, for there are also other, though fewer, books that have a well thought and structured plot (some of the very best thrillers are based on good plots), but because its very deep message is placed point-blank in the middle of the reader's mind.

"Crosspoints" is a novel of choice down to the exact precision of what a choice, any choice, really means and implies. Our whole existence is a long and intricate intersection of roads that advance in different directions. "Crosspoints" teaches us all how and what decision to take at each juncture and what happens if we don't take a decision, if we allow chance to decide by default the direction to be taken at the crossroad reached. It's a book to keep you awake and alert in the best Aynrandian tradition. You'll find this out by reading it.

The background of this book is Art, and Alexandra York is a well-known expert in this heavily injured area. Art emerges as its main theme through its characters and York uses it to shrewdly master a precise attack against "modern art" which, in its various forms and ways of expression, has since very long established itself from fact to the practically unquestioned dogma of being by far superior to what the "moderns" term "classical art". Further on, these "moderns" (who never defined the term) assert with a gnash of their teeth that they cannot be moved aside since there simply doesn't exist anything else nor better. This sufficed to scare any opponents into what the self-established "avant-garde" calls "the caves of the past", where the adversaries keep to themselves and neither dare to present battle nor even seem to recognize that a totally different movement of art, with totally different ideals, is developing. Which one this is will be revealed in the book.

"Crosspoints" dares to go into the open and sets up the confrontation by using the various relations of its characters as the opposition between the ideas held by each side of the contenders and the choices that must be taken as well as the choices that are avoided and, thus, operate by default, the result determining the future.

Since "Crosspoints" is a novel and not a boring technical paper, it contains a love triangle of such perfect intensity that it suffices by itself to turn the whole story into a page-turner for the reader impatient to know what will Tara, the main female character, decide as she is at breakneck speed torn between two men who symbolize quite different standpoints. Tara faces, as York cleverly devised and the reader knows, only two opposing paths to choose from and swerving toward any of them will not just determine her own future but also the life and fortune of those that surround her and partake in her life. During the process toward the goal of her definite decision, chips and whole batteries of levers fall into place and influence and determine not only the future life of the characters but also the outcome of the confrontation between noble ideals and ignoble purposes. Along the way, the reader himself will have to make up his own mind for he stands at the fulcrum, the "crosspoint" of his own life, and by deciding what position he will defend he will also point out the progression of his own existence.

There's only one small criticism I have to voice toward the author. Alexandra York, who in the meantime published poetry, lyrics, etc., copyrighted her novel in 2004. I gave her all of the 5 stars available to reward the excellence of what she wrote, but I should have given her only 4 stars, as a little reprimand and reminder that for 5 years she left her readers on a long stretch of thirst without supplying them with another good novel. I hope she corrects this without delay.