Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Thriller / suspense fiction

STILL LIVES

Maria Hummel

A young editor at a Los Angeles art museum finds herself pulled into the strange and disturbing world of a famous artist who goes missing on the opening night of her exhibition.

Kim Lord is a giant in the Los Angeles art scene: avant garde figure, feminist icon, and agent provocateur. And her new exhibition "Still Lives" is expected to be just as groundbreaking. Comprised of self-portraits depicting Lord as famous, murdered women - the Black Dahlia, Chandra Levy, Roseann Quinn, and many others - the works are as compelling as they are disturbing, implicating a culture that is too accustomed to violence against women. As L.A.'s richest art patrons pour into the Rocque Museum's opening night, all of the staff, including editor Maggie Richter, hope the event will be big enough to save the historic institution's flailing finances. Except Kim Lord never shows up to her own exhibition. Fear mounts as the hours and days drag on and Lord remains missing. Suspicion falls upon the up-and-coming gallerist Greg Shaw Ferguson, who happens to be Maggie's ex. A rogue's gallery of eccentric art world figures could also have motive for the act, and as Maggie gets drawn into her own investigation of Lord's disappearance, she'll come to suspect all of those closest to her. As bright and blinding as the Los Angeles sunlight, STILL LIVES is a page-turning exodus into the art world's hall of mirrors, one woman's journey through the belly of an industry filled with money, secrets, failure, and genius. Maria Hummel s the author of the poetry collection House and Fire, winner of the 2013 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, and two novels: Motherland (Counterpoint, 2014) and Wilderness Run (St. Martin's, 2003). Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in Poetry, New England Review, Narrative, The Sun, The New York Times, and the centenary anthology The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine. A Stegner Fellow, she taught at Stanford for nine years. She lives in Vermont with her husband and two sons, and teaches at the University of Vermont.

Available products
Book Published 2018-06-12 by Counterpoint

Comments

There's nothing I like better than a well-written page-turner about the art world, and Maria Hummel has delivered this and more. Flawed characters abound as do clever plots and subplots along with irresistible peeks into hidden chambers of the LA art scene. Riveting.

STILL LIVES is selected as "Best Book" by various media: - A PureWow Book We Can't Wait to Read in June selection - A Time Magazine Best Book of Summer 2018 - Book of the Month, May 2018 selection - BuzzFeed Summer Reading Pick

Splendid... STILL LIVES is both savvy and lyrical - the perfect beach read for either coast.

Exceptional. The careful characterizations of the players in the Rocque's sphere of influence mean that, as the mystery unfolds to reveal them as suspects or victims, the reader feels deep empathy that comes from perceiving them as real people, not plot devices. Hummel builds visceral intimacy around 'women's oppressive anxiety about [their] ultimate vulnerability' in this often uncomfortable tale about the media's fetishistic fascination with the violent murders of beautiful women.

A knowing insider's guide to a Los Angeles not usually seen in novels... A deeply affecting examination of how our culture fetishizes female victims of crime... It will have readers feverishly turning pages to discover the fate of engaging characters... A stunning achievement.

That delicious combination of entertainment and brilliance. It's at once profound and suspenseful, and while the plot kept me up nights (the ending had me gasping in surprise!), the book as a whole asks important questions about art and representation and how we, as a culture, objectify and endanger and victimize women. Maria Hummel has written a remarkable, relevant, and necessary novel.

A polished, droll, and provocative art-world thriller. With a cast of strong and complicated female characters, headed by a determined, reckless, funny, and imperiled amateur sleuth, Hummel crafts a shrewd and suspenseful inquiry into womanhood and the dark side of the art market, punctuated by striking variations on identity, portraiture, and 'still lives'. Read more...

[A] spellbinding new novel. No doubt comparisons to Raymond Chandler's best work will rain down upon STILL LIVES, dotted as it is with trenchant observations of LA and the human condition. Like Chandler, Hummel is capable of limning out a ripping yarn replete with high fashion, high finance and high society.

Offers an intriguing insider's view into a high-stakes, turbulent industry, from peculiar artists to fabulous exhibitions. With deliberate pacing increasing the tension, the story line revolving around the public's fascination with graphic crimes against women serves as a chilling reminder that such violence continues to occur in many forms.

In this taut take on noir, misogyny, and the art of responsible storytelling, Hummel balances the glitz and glam of the Los Angeles art world with the town tourists don't often see. This is a whip-smart mystery and a moving meditation on the consumption of female bodies all rolled into one.

A suspenseful, splashy story about fame, sex, and how our culture views women's bodies. I also loved that it tackled the sticky subject of how women are portrayed in art, culture, and the media?and the consequences of those portrayals. This is a thrilling book, and a much-needed one. Read it and you'll see what I mean.

While her protagonist investigates the disappearance of a major artist, Maria Hummel runs a shrewd parallel investigation into culture, gender, violence, and art. STILL LIVES is a propulsive, carefully crafted mystery with real thematic focus and heft.

Mystery and murder cloud this feminist story set in the heart of Los Angeles' art scene. When an avant-garde artist goes missing on the day her groundbreaking exhibition opens, the story spins out in many provocative directions.

As gritty and glittering as the L.A. art world it depicts, Maria Hummel's latest novel soars into the sun-swept heights of fame and beauty, then plunges us into violence. Hummel does what she does best: delving with sensitivity and wit into complex, intertwined lives, lives that strain the frames that enclose them. Intelligent, vivid, and impeccably paced, this thrilling novel forces us to confront how dangerous art can be.

STILL LIVES is moody and restless, propelled by a gradually intensifying sense of unease. Hummel envelopes the reader in the LA art scene, all whispered rumors, false smiles, and glam parties.