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Overview
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.
Synopsis
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.
Entertainment Weekly
...[I]nverts the traditional male/female painter/muse dynamic.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewMarch 1998
With such acclaimed works as The Shadow Man and The Other Side, Mary Gordon has established herself as one of America's most important female writers. Her novels are known for their vivid explorations of the depths of human feeling and what it means to live a moral, religious, and artistic life. In Spending, Gordon examines the complex details of everyday life while encapsulating larger themes in her story of a woman who seemingly has her wishes granted.
In Spending the reader is introduced to Monica Szabo, a woman in her 50s. She is divorced, has raised her children, and is finally able to focus on her painting without guilt or sacrifice. She is already a moderately successful painter when she encounters B., a wealthy man who is willing to become her patron — and eventually her lover and muse.
Once Monica is freed from the pressures of finance and reawakened by an erotic and compassionate love, she begins to create her best work. She embarks on a series of paintings based on the idea that the deposed Christs of Renaissance art were not dead but postorgasmic.
These highly controversial paintings immediately make her a hero of the art world — and an enemy of the Christian right. But as Monica's fame and wealth increase enormously, B. is faced with an abrupt turn in his fortunes and loses almost everything. Suddenly, Monica and B. find their roles reversed and must contend with the implications involved in a society where the man is generally considered the provider.
Although Gordon has presented manycomplexissues that cannot easily be resolved, she paints them around an erotic and pleasure-charged story. As Gordon dissects gender relationships, religion, and artistic integrity, she never removes joy from her story. The joys found in sex, work, food, nature, and friendship are found in overwhelming abundance. As the novel progresses, the different meanings of Spending become clear. Yet the provocative story and fully drawn characters create an enjoyable path for the many discoveries that Gordon provides.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Mary Gordon's most seriously entertaining novel yet...as subtle as Collette, as funny as a slapstick comedy, and as steamy as a bodice-ripper.Entertainment Weekly
...[I]nverts the traditional male/female painter/muse dynamic.Library Journal
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 University Library, Arlington, VA
Library Journal
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 University Library, Arlington, VA
Entertainment Weekly
...[I]nverts the traditional male/female painter/muse dynamic.LA Times Book Review
A witty ode to the values we place on art, sex, and money.Time Magazine
A smart, seductive book...with an abundance of wit and charm.San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
Scintillating....a tale about the gratification of desire full of creamy, witty prose.Cleveland Plain Dealer
Mary Gordon's most seriously entertaining novel yet...as subtle as Collette, as funny as a slapstick comedy, and as steamy as a bodice-ripper.Hilary Mantel
Gordon is an honest and perceptive writer.— The New York Times Book Review