New Mexico is a complicated area of the United States – so much so that the state adds the designation USA on its license plates confirming that New Mexico is indeed part of the United States. First time novelist, Eliza Campbell, born and bred in New Mexico, is not murky at all. In The Dissemblers, she renders an accurate portrayal of Santa Fe and an intimate look into the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in concise and sparse prose.
Campbell writes sparingly as her subject commands. Not an extra word or punctuation mark to slow the reader down. No babbling dialogue that one skips over after the first few pages. She paints a distinct portrait of a young artist whose talent unfolds through her intense study and replication of paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe. Like much of the protagonist’s information, these paintings are kept private, studies for her own education. Written in the first person, it takes pages to learn the character’s name but it does not matter – the story is intriguing.
It is through random meetings and happenstance that Ivy Wilkes’ work falls into the hands of supposed friends, Maya, Omar, and Jake. A spider’s web of truth and deception unfurls as Ivy follows her “friends” into a world of art forgery. Ivy’s fear, akin to writer’s block, renders her incapable of painting from her own vision as she parrots the work of a master in search of her own worth and point of view.
Romantic relationships in The Dissemblers are portrayed in extreme as depicted in on again, off again moments. Each character uttering painful, hurtful insults including Omar to Ivy when he says, “You’re in love with your loneliness. You isolate yourself and that is your fucking muse.” Campbell’s dialogue is taught and rife with reality as she doesn’t spare the reader from how people really speak.
Books about the art world abound, wonderful books such as Steve Martin’s The Object of Desire; Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton and The Girl with the Gallery by Lindsay Pollock. The Dissemblers is unique in its focus on two artists, one dead, one living, who approach the same subject matter one as a self-expression and the other as an educational adventure. Both painting stunning work that is echoed by the sparseness of the desert location, and the bare bones writing style of Ms. Campbell.
A recipient of Wellesley’s Mary Elvira Stevens Fellowship, Campbell holds an M.F.A. in Writing from the University of San Francisco. She received her B.A. in English from Wellesley College and currently resides in Boulder, Colorado. The Dissemblers is her first novel and her career is off to a superb start.
The Dissemblers
By Liza Campbell
Published by Permanent Press
ISBN# 9781579622053
Cover Design: Lon Kirschner
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