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The God of My Art: A Novel by [Sarah Lane]

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Sarah Lane

The God of My Art: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Sarah Lane (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

3.8 87 ratings

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2012 AMAZON BREAKTHROUGH NOVEL AWARD QUARTERFINALIST

“Really takes off during a high and naked moment in a self-made steam hut in the woods.” –Publisher’s Weekly

A portrait of the artist as a young woman...

Helene vividly remembers that night in Prince George when her alcoholic mother threatened to leave. She also cannot forget the day her stepfather sent her away to a group home. Now, years later in Vancouver, she has met a man who can make her forget all that.

The God of My Art is layered with unforgettable scenes of youth, obsessive love, and artistic longing. At the core of this coming-of-age tale are the shifting faces of Helene—teenage runaway, university student, and budding artist. Related in her engaging voice, this novel chronicles Helene’s seminal love affair with Matthew, a globetrotting mountaineer passionate about Nietzsche, and the art he inspires within her. As she wrestles to become the artist she wants to be, she encounters unforgettable characters along the way, including Hana, a lesbian theatre student fed up with her partner’s multiple affairs, and Laurent, a French exchange student who grapples with existential questions of his own.

Bold and poetic, sensual and confessional, The God of My Art explores obsessive love as a source of inspiration for art, where the artist is female and the eternal muse, male.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sarah Lane is a Canadian author. Her first novel The God of My Art was a quarterfinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in The Antigonish Review, Roar Magazine, and Quills: Canadian Poetry Magazine.

She has travelled the globe, from Cameroon to Costa Rica to Scotland to Spain. She wrote her first novel while living in France. Now a mom to two young children, she has put down tentative roots in Vancouver, where she's working on a new book: a psychological thriller about a doppelgänger and the madness of salsa dancing.

Learn more:
Website: http://www.sarahlanebooks.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sarahlanebooks
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/sarahlanebooks

* Sign up to be the first to know about Sarah's new releases http://bit.ly/1mSSH58

Print length

225 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publication date

November 7, 2013
File size

1617 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Sarah Lane's debut novel is an ambitious exploration of how an artist is born and - perhaps more importantly - how she chooses to follow that path as an adult. Lane's prose style is superb; there is a great deal of keen observation, strong dialogue, and interesting ruminations from a heroine coming of age after a difficult childhood." -Sandra Hutchison, author of The Awful Mess: A Love Story

"This is one of the best books I've read in a very long time. The plot and character development was brilliant and the writing was exquisite, hard when it needed to be and gentle when required, too. The author never took a wrong turn anywhere. I didn't know where the story was going and I didn't care. I was just so caught up in it." -Martin Crosbie, author of My Temporary Life

"Really takes off during a high and naked moment in a self-made steam hut in the woods." -Publisher's Weekly

"Many authors succeed in capitalizing on vibrant cities to set their novels, but Sarah Lane's beautiful and simple prose takes this a magical step further. The God of My Art is far more than a collage of Vancouver beaches, streets and towering mountains. The novel's strength lies in the dichotomy of the "chosen" and "outliers"--the pampered heirs to Shaughnessy fortunes and the soon-to-disappear women of Hastings Street back alleys. Like art, Lane's prose reveals its deepest secrets not in the rays of light, but in the shadows." -New Perspectives on Canadian Literature

"Be warned: Lane's prose has a tendency to gently lure you into reading the book in one sitting." -The Ubyssey

From the Back Cover

Helene vividly remembers that night in Prince George when her alcoholic mother threatened to leave. She also cannot forget the day her stepfather sent her away to a group home. Now, years later in Vancouver, she has met a man who can make her forget all that.

The God of My Art is layered with unforgettable scenes of youth, obsessive love, and artistic longing. At the core of this haunting coming-of-age tale are the shifting faces of Helene--teenage runaway, university student, and budding artist. Related in Helene's engaging voice, this novel chronicles her seminal love affair with Matthew, a globetrotting mountaineer passionate about Nietzsche, and the art he inspires within her. As she wrestles to become the artist she wants to be, she encounters unforgettable characters along the way, including Hana, a lesbian theatre student fed up with her partner's multiple affairs, and Laurent, a French exchange student who grapples with existential questions of his own.

Bold and poetic, sensual and confessional, The God of My Art is the beautifully written first novel by Sarah Lane, one of Canada's most exciting new literary voices.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00DF4RVCS
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Purpleferns Press (November 7, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 7, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1617 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 225 pages

Customer Reviews:
3.8 87 ratings

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Sarah Lane

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Sarah Lane is a Canadian author. Her first novel The God of My Art was a quarterfinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in The Antigonish Review, Roar Magazine, and Quills: Canadian Poetry Magazine.

She has travelled the globe, from Cameroon to Costa Rica to Scotland to Spain. She wrote her first novel while living in France. Now a mom to two young children, she has put down tentative roots in Vancouver, where she's working on a new book: a psychological thriller about a doppelgänger and the madness of salsa dancing.

Learn more:

Website: www.sarahlanebooks.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sarahlanebooks

Twitter: www.twitter.com/sarahlanebooks

* Sign up to be the first to know about Sarah's new releases (copy and paste into address bar): eepurl.com/Zk4Jj

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5

87 global ratings

5 star		38%
4 star		30%
3 star		14%
2 star		8%
1 star		10%

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Top reviews from the United States

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R. Sneed

Kept my attention

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 12, 2023

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I liked the story and writing style. Sometimes too much description and unneeded sidelines. I was disappointed in the ending- I guess I was looking for more to tie it all up.

Helpful

missmickee-bookreview

An Artist and Muse: A Coming of Age Revelation....

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 4, 2014

Verified Purchase

From the moment one has obtained something desired, it is no longer desirable. The desire to obtain something disappears the moment it is obtained............. (The Kama Sutra)
The Muse: Forever timeless, and endlessly fascinating.............(Anonymous)

The artistic inspiration from an unattainable muse, combined with an unfolding coming-of-age of a young college student/artist is the focus of author Sarah Lane's : "the God of my Art: A Novel".

While living in Vancouver B.C. Helene was preparing to attend the University to study Commerce, and supported herself as a restaurant worker. Still mourning the loss of her best friend Stacey, from an unfortunate accident; she talked on the phone regularly advising her recovering alcoholic mother Katie, who lived in Prince George with her husband Lyle.

From the opening of the book, Helene was involved with Matthew, a University student who lived in his parents basement in Kerrisdale, quoted Nietzsche, spoke Japanese, enjoyed hiking, mountain climbing, and outdoor activities. In his filthy room Helene asked him about a stamp on a letter. The stack of letters he had were from Yoshiko, who he was planning to visit in Asia, along with a plan to participate in humanitarian work overseas. Matthew tells Helene: "Trust me, my ocean lover", while claiming to have never been in love. Helene joined Matthew on a 3 day hiking/camping trip to Garibaldi Lake, they never had a meaningful or extended conversation. The evening before Matthew left the country, Helene drew/sketched him in the nude, her camera was out of film. After he left, Helene discovered Matthew had stolen from her, (an unforgivable offence in my opinion, considering the item he stole).

Matthew being the beloved unattainable artistic muse adds to the literary dynamic of the book. The reader learns about as much about Matthew as Helene does, which isn't much. The details of their relationship are vague, and the reader can only speculate what it was about Matthew that contributed so deeply to Helene's artistic expression. Fortunately, Helene developed new friends who truly enjoyed her company and supported her artistically and emotionally. The blend of past and present between Helene and her mother were exceptionally done, including the unexpected (tragic) circumstances that occurred.

Sarah Lane attended the University of British Colombia earning her MFA in Comparative Literature. Her writing has appeared in various magazines and literary journals in the U.S. and Canada, Ms. Lane is a Goodreads author, this novel was featured on BookBub. She lives in Vancouver, Canada, and is writing her next novel.
Many thanks to Amazon for the Kindle e-book promotional copy.

.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Rocky

Sarah's Writing Reminds me of Anita Brookner

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 21, 2014

Verified Purchase

I read Sarah Lane's literary novel on my Kindle. I knew nothing about the novel before I started reading, and at first I thought I might have stumbled into a sappy romance or an erotic piece of fiction. Wrong. What Sarah has created here is a layered look into a young artist's life as she finds her true calling, rather than the safe route of studying "commerce" or business. The book was subtle and it reminded me of the quiet books of Anita Brookner that take you deep inside a woman's life as she is about to make a profound change. Of course, some of the material Sarah Lane writes about would probably give Brookner a wince, but perhaps not.

Helene, the protagonist is a young university student in Vancouver, and as you progress through the novel you discover Helene has lived a rough life that might have well seen her end up as an addict or a missing teen in East Vancouver, rather than a scholarship student in a university.

While the respectable and safe path of a business degree beckons, and Helene's self-absorbed mother believes art is a waste of time, art is what calls to Helene and makes her life bearable. An unrequited love becomes the catalyst that causes Helene to question who she is and what matters to her, and I found myself pulling for her to make the leap of faith that would give her the chance to become the artists she always was.

At times I wanted to shake Helene and tell her to not waste time or energy thinking about a person who did not return her love, but in the end, I think the way Helene felt about her muse was what was key to her making the steps she needed to make.

The story bogged a bit now and then, but the chapters about East Vancouver and Windeal were wonderful. The book is really about relationships and about taking a chance to become what you are meant to be. I will definitely read Sarah Lane's next book and I highly recommend this one.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

This Author Can Sure Write!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 27, 2014

Verified Purchase

This author is skilled with prose, and it shows. Almost every page allows you to sigh with content at the descriptive language used.

Sometimes the heavy use of description gets in the way of the story, but the writing is so good, you'll agree it's worth it.

I really liked the part where she imagines that she is not that far removed from being a bag lady. Honestly, these destitute on skid row are real people too, and some of them may have lived lives like us, but found themselves one day on the wrong side of the tracks due to drug or alcohol abuse, or cruel family members in positions of authority who would not support them, possibly because they had rendered themselves helpless. The part where she showed a bag lady her drawing of her as a subject was very touching.

I think the story could have been more complete though. It starts off with a bang, and sustains itself powerfully. However, too many issues were left dangling. Where is Matthew? It's a work of fiction, and it may be contrived to do so, but authors are perfectly allowed to bring about a return of an important character at the ending, to tie up loose ends. What happened to her father? Again, it would be good to explore that history. Memoirs are real - there may be no happy ending, or there may be an incomplete story. Here, this is a work of fiction, and we readers demand solutions or answers to questions that the author tantalizingly brings about. What happened to her art career? Maybe a postscript going back over the last five years since the ending of the book would be most helpful.

But, boy, this author can write. Proved her writing chops.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Casey

A good, fast read about a young artist searching for herself that leaves you thinking about the story long after

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 25, 2013

Verified Purchase

The narrative voice in this novel takes you on a roller coaster ride through emotional fixations and reactions. The main character Helene has not admitted to herself that she is an artist yet, and so she is still trying to live as a "normal" person should.

The story starts out slow and sensual with what seem to be everyday events, like a new boyfriend and fights with her mother, only hinting at the despair and beauty that will rise to the surface through the three sections of the book. It's the kind of story you can't stop thinking about after you've put the book down, because underneath the mundane events there are profound reflections on personal freedom, societal expectations, and family ties.

I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. I would compare it to Shanghai Baby in some ways in that it is about a young artist searching for herself. Also to some of Evelyn Lau's writing.

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