Spending: A Utopian Divertimento

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
March 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.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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. (He is ever willing to pose for her.). Soon after she and B become lovers, Monica starts work on a controversial new series of paintings based on her perception that the deposed Christs of Renaissance art were not dead, but postorgasmic. The show of her new work, championed by the critics and picketed by the Christian Right, makes her a media darling and makes her rich. B, meanwhile, suffers a sudden loss of fortune. Will she takes care of him as he took care of her? How does he handle his loss of power? How does she? What happens in the bedroom?

FROM THE CRITICS

Entertainment Weekly

...[I]nverts the traditional male/female painter/muse dynamic.

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.

Library Journal - Starr Smith, Marymount University Library, Arlington, VA

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.

Library Journal - Starr Smith, Marymount University Library, Arlington, VA

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.

Entertainment Weekly