Customer Reviews

The Great Man: A Novel

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I devoured The Great Man in a day! What a rich, thoughtful, smart, funny book. Teddy, Maxine, and Abigail are three of the most compelling characters I've read in a long time. I wanted to sit down with all of them for a coffee (or a whiskey) and hear even more on what they thought about life, love and art. And Kate Christensen's writing is elegant, accessible and fresh, and, I'll say it again, so funny. The art is not just in the story, but in the way she tells it. She is truly a gifted writer. As great as her first three books were, this book is even better. I can't wait for the next one!

The Great Man is, quite simply, a novel about a foursome of great women, all of whom had rich lives well into their seventies, and all of whom were hopelessly entangled with the great womanizing painter Oscar Feldman. Feldman was the arrogant, charismatic Golden Boy of his generation, a man who painted nothing but the female nude and eschewed formal training. Five years after Feldman's death, two competing biographers started researching his life. The novel is set around the lives of the women who survived Feldman, as they bicker amongst themselves and conspire to keep family art secrets.

One could center a lovely book club discussion around the desires and outcomes for the women in Oscar Feldman's life. He married graduate student Abigail, who bore his autistic son and devoted her life to her son's special needs, staunchly refusing to institutionalize the boy. Abigail had family money which afforded Oscar his painting career, and she was content to ignore his many marital transgressions. She had a rewarding, life-long friendship with her housekeeper, and in her old age, Abigail misses the housekeeper far more than her late husband.

Abigail's arch nemesis was the bohemian, free-spirited mistress of her husband. Teddy bore Oscar's twin daughters and gave them his surname, but never asked to more than one of his many female conquests. He left nothing to Teddy upon his death, a fact which outraged those in the know but didn't surprise Teddy in the least.

Oscar's butch lesbian sister Maxine is a painter in her own right with a love/hate relationship with her brother. She rabidly encourages Abigail to hate Oscar's former mistress, even when Abigail and Teddy are ready to find common ground. The foursome is rounded out by Lila, Teddy's lifelong best friend, who (surprisingly) never slept with Oscar, and with whom Abigail forms a tentative relationship with during the course of the novel.

Kate Christensen, in addition to painting rich characters worth of contemplation and discussion, portrays women in their seventies as sexy and feisty. Oscar Feldmen is a plot device for a novel which is truly a character study, probing to ask women what bring satisfaction in life--love? sex? family? The women of The Great Man also examine how the wisdom of age change life priorities, and how one can come to terms with youthful foolishness.

This book exceeded all expectations; and based on the description, my expectations were high. It is impossible to not want to know each of these characters intimately. They are all so unique, and intoxicating. I found myself feeling like I was a part of their circle, and that I was the one conducting the interviews, prodding for more information.
Not only are the characters and storyline so enthralling, but the language used is eloquent, and thoughtful, but not at all overdone.
I loved this book from start to finish, I was sad to put it down when it ended.

What a book. How unusual for an author to write about older women in their 70s and 80s, to make women this age the main characters, and to bring them to the reader as women who are still very sexual as they talk about changes in their bodies and remember the sexual experiences of their youth -
For any readers, especially women, who wonder about their mortality and how they will change as they age, this is a fascinating book.

Some "great books" are a chore to read. They ooze pretension, incomprehensibility or characters who sit stillborn on the page. THE GREAT MAN is a great book with none of these or other common hurdles.

Kate Christensen's absorbing novel deploys two competing biographers to conduct interviews with the family and friends of famous painter of female nudes, Oscar Feldman, five years after his death at age 78. Both the married, WASPish Henry Burke and the single, black Ralph Washington quickly discover their interviewees are not above turning the tables and peppering them with personal, invasive questions; making for lively, wide-ranging, and delightfully natural conversations.

THE GREAT MAN propels itself forward via the biographers' visits to Oscar's mistress of forty years, Teddy, and her fraternal twin daughters by him; his older sister, Maxine, who is also an artist but one of less notoriety; and his one and only wife, Abigail, and their autistic son who still lives at home. Charmingly, great portions of the book are devoted to showing the reader these women's lives, thoughts and feelings with nary a biographer in sight. The irascible Maxine finagles (consciously or unconsciously, that is the question) a balancing of artistic accounts with her renowned brother. Independent Teddy weighs the pros and cons of starting a new love life. And quiescent, intuitive Abigail barters unflinchingly for a softball version of her wayward husband's life.

First, after an obituary of Oscar, the novel devotes a "Part" to each of the three ladies. Then Part Four allots each a chapter, concluding with a chapter that visits them each briefly again. Finally, Henry and Ralph meet at a Feldman art retrospecitve and compare notes, followed by a book review of both of the fruits of their respective labors. It is a flawless presentational structure that flows easily and permits the reader to luxuriate in a string of exceptional conversations. THE GREAT MAN doesn't make the mistake of isolating the characters and withholding a cathartic convocation. The women, mobilized by an Oscar Feldman secret, all gather at a propitious juncture and have it out!

THE GREAT MAN, then, isn't really about philandering, demanding artist Oscar, but about the women who supported him. Teddy, Maxine, and Abigail -- and those who people their lives -- appear irresistibly real. Christensen is truly gifted as a creator of imaginable characters and scintillating, crackling dialogue. Once, however, Oscar's status as catalyst rather than primary subject did seem a missed opportunity. That occurred when reading the capping book review. Quotes from people we didn't meet in THE GREAT MAN and the single slippery line from his journal about a model he "deflowered:" " ' She was like a newborn suckling fawn, still wet with amniotic fluid,' " spurred regret that Henry and Ralph's biographies aren't actually available. But THE GREAT MAN has every right to "leave them wanting more." The novel delivers such a sumptuous banquet (no exaggeration, as food, lovingly described, intimately pervades many a scene) that only the edacious, the gluttonous, would not feel replete.

Enjoy this great book!

My first experience with Kate Christensen and her work was simply magical. Her mellow prose and smooth flow of narration was skillfully marred with sharp but true sarcasm, the story felt like real life brimming with intellectual yet spicy richness, very much beyond the usual fun things I tend to read. I rarely pick up heavy and difficult books, sometimes it's nice to pick up a fun story that's an equivalent of junk food, but with Christensen you get all the hot, sizzling action, you read about secrets and kinks that people have and still nourish your head with deeper ideas of why people stay together and love each other. The separation between lust and passion, love and tenderness is sharply broken with each character in the novel but given chance they prove that crossing lines is easier now that Oscar is gone.

I found this book to be stunning, luscious, naughty and brilliant, very much to the point and sometimes crass when it came to the language. This novel left me choked up, full of thoughts swarming in my head, a whole locust of ideas. I was finding new things hidden in the plot and new reasons for character's actions on my way home on the bus, while cooking or even in the shower. After reading this I still feel connected to the vibrant story of a fictional painter and the women in his life; his wife, sister, the mistress and her friend and other people who mingled with him in the art world, crossing moral lines of what is art and what is pure lust. Oscar Feldman, the great man of the art world left a legacy after his death; it was the women who were in his life and not the art that took the main stage in this novel, and relationships between them were as rough as the stormy seas. After his death they slowly realized that him being gone changed things, in what way, well you have to read and find out, but I promise this is an interesting read. There was also a lot of great food going on, from wines to spicy lettuces, saucy dishes and wonderful appetizers which were all part of this story, and in fact it made me crave gourmet food more than ever. I even tired the wine that Teddy, his mistress, drank and it was sumptuous.

I was impressed at the dept the author was able to reach, for a young woman she took the ladies in the novel, who were in their seventies and eighties, and made them believable and captivating, it all sounded like words coming from a seasoned writer. Was the man great, yeah, maybe, but the women surrounding him were more than he could have ever imagined or appreciated. Oscar was lucky to have Abigail, Maxine, Teddy and Lila, they took over my mind as I read the book and they are still running through my thoughts, this book really leaves a lasting impression, bravo!

- Kasia S.

I am somewhat taken aback that the other reviewers here seemed so entranced by this book. While it starts with a great conceit (the life of the artist reflected in his women), it never really becomes the smart book it appears at first to be. Rather, the author gets lost in creating unbelievable situations and terribly stilted dialogue. There were some wonderful discussions about aesthetics, but these, too, were lost among painfully "quirky" characters who, inexplicably, ALL spoke in exactly the same manner. The poor biographers were similarly mistreated, turned into cartoon figures. This author clearly has talent, but it goes awry here. The conclusion in particular is abrupt and unsatisfying. I must admit, I am very disappointed because this novel sounded like a true find. Oh, well.

A splendid novel about what happens to the lives of several women after the great man they loved (as wives, lovers, or daughters) dies. The great man in question was a painter, and so is one of the women he left behind. The story unfolds through the device of having two very different biographers approaching the various women in the great man's life in order to write about the deceased. Kate Christensen's take on male-female relationships, art, and what it means to be "great" make for very thoughtful and pleasurable reading.

This might not be the sort of book that most people describe as a 'page-turner,' but it functioned that way for me. The book is about the women in the life of a recently deceased famous artist - his mistress, wife, and sister. The women are being interviewed by two biographers writing books about Oscar Feldman, a painter known for his almost pornographic portraits of nude women. Although at times little things about the writing annoyed me, the characters and relationships kept me coming back for more. I read this book at a stressful time and I take it as a mark of its success when I can climb into bed at the end of the day and look forward to what I am reading, despite what is going on in my life.

The eponymous Great Man of the title never appears, even in a literary flashback, but his effect lingers around the women who loved him and made his life possible for four decades. The portrait of him as a painter of genius and as a debaucher is relentless, and were it not for the quality of the women who cared about him, the reader would feel he was nothing but a despicable cad. This is a rare book because it brings to the forefront four women over 70 years of age who are all still leading sentient lives despite the fact that two of them were in thrall to the Man for most of their lives. Lovely story, well told.