Spending: A Novel [Paperback]

Mary Gordon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 11, 1999

Monica Szabo, a middle-aged, moderately successful painter, encounters B, a wealthy commodities broker who collects her work. B volunteers to be her muse, offering her everything that male artists have always had to produce great art: time, space, money, and sex.

Passionate, provocative, and highly engaging, Spending displays Gordon's maverick feminism, her extraordinary wit, and her unique perspectives on art, money, men, sex -- and the desires of women.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. "Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?" Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot.

Yet Spending proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia. Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? "I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS."

Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. "If you call yourself a sex worker," Rachel poses, "you don't have to get freaked out." Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, Spending is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites "because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot." B, it turns out, is Spending's problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, A Utopian Divertimento, in mind. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Librarians, buy this book! But be prepared for strong reactions from the writer's legion of fans. With her return to fiction, Gordon (The Shadow Man, LJ 5/1/96) departs from her customary fare. While her thematic interests in relationships, religious faith, and Catholic heritage are all in evidence here, this novel is a witty and graphically sexy fantasy about money, art, modern mores, and, above all, good physical partnering. At 50, Monica Szabo, New York artist, divorced mother, and teacher, is a well-regarded painter with middling financial success. Suddenly, she acquires a patron, a muse, a lover, and an artist's model, all in the person of a moneymaking genius who adores both her and her work. In every way, he supports her latest, scandalous artistic vision of re-creating classical images of the deposed Christ as postorgasmic rather than deceased. The commotion surrounding Monica's Jesus paintings allows the author plenty of room for satiric barbs at contemporary aesthetic and social interest groups, mixed in with the doings of uniformly interesting major and minor characters and a plot device bringing about reversals of fortune and subsequent resolutions worthy of the most over-the-top best seller. Overall, a hearty and satisfying stew of a book; highly recommended.
-?Starr Smith, Marymount Univ. Lib., Arlington, Va.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction edition (March 11, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684852047
• ISBN-13: 978-0684852041
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #326,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Something for Everyone, January 22, 2000

By 

Kimberly Rhodes - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spending: A Novel (Paperback)

The triumph of this book is not just that it makes one want to read everything Mary Gordon has written, but that it (hopefully) prompts the reader to discover more about art history, feminist art and women artists. As a feminist art historian, I read this book with avid interest and have since made it required reading for two of my college classes. Students respond to its frank discussion of female sexuality, copious references to art, fast pace and breezy, lyrical writing style. I admire Mary Gordon's firm grasp and detailed description of the artistic process, knowledge of feminist art history and criticism, willingness to discuss such challenging issues as censorship, protest and patronage and obvious and infectious love of art.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty, fun, intelligent and altogether delightful, July 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Spending: A Novel (Paperback)

This was quite simply the most enjoyable book I've read in years. Don't judge this one by its cover - it's not erotica in the usual sense, but an exploration of art and life with the senses and the intellect. The unconventional narrator tosses off incredibly pithy, occasionally cynical observations on money, fashion, and sex in the provocative tradition of Wilde. Best of all is the insightful portrayal of the artistic process, written about painting but equally identifiable by anyone who writes, sculpts, composes, etc. and finds both pain and ecstasy, fear and pride, in the labor of creation. I highly recommend this novel as a thoroughly entertaining, exuberantly feminist* yarn.

*that need not be an oxymoron, folks

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully Written Prose, Compelling Characters, June 27, 2004

By 

Kim "Kim" (Seattle) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Spending: A Novel (Paperback)

Monica Szabo is a 50 something artist looking for something. She finds something as B, responds to her question during a speech about where the male muses are. But B is much more than just her muse, he becomes her lover and her financial support at the same time.

Some really important questions are asked as we move through the book. For me, her attempts to rise above the fact that she was having sex with B and he was giving her money for her art and whether that made her a whore was one I gave a lot of thought to. Moreover, I think some really interesting takes on modern day feminism were explored.

The thing that made this book so compelling for me was that Monica is not a likeable character in the least. She's a horrible mother, she's selfish, she doesn't treat B very well most of the time and yet, you want to read more about her. Very few authors can suck you in that way.

I didn't see this book as a romance novel. Goodness knows I've read enough of them. There is no ease here, no real romance. Sex sure, but a lot of difficult exploration of personal stuff keeps it far from the harlequin romance descriptions I've seen in some other reviews. The real difficulty of balancing one's feminist preconceptions with the reality of sharing a life with someone else, especially when they are supporting you financially brings it to a completely different level.

No, the book isn't perfect but it is compelling and beautifully written. This is a rare and delicious treat.