THE BIOGRAPHER'S LOVER

"My grandfather was the sculptor Guy Boyd, and a lot of biographies were written about his generation. It was complicated for both the biographers and their subjects. A biographer wants to understand their subject's deepest motivations and urges. But, as humans, we're not singular; each situation brings out a new side in us." (Ruby J Murray)

The Biographer's Lover is a novel about our complex relationship with memory, and the role gender plays in the ways we represent not only national myths but our private versus our public selves. It tells the dual stories of a biographer and her subject, the artist Edna Whitedale. Early on we learn that the biographer has fabricated and covered-up elements of the artist's life. As the narrative progresses – switching between the perspectives of the biographer grappling with the project and the biography she writes – the reader starts to understand why she made the decisions she did, and is asked to consider whether she was right to do so.

This elegant and engrossing novel explores how we choose to value and memorialise art and artists' lives, and reminds us that all memory is an act of curation.

Ruby J Murray is an award-winning writer and journalist who currently lives in San Francisco. She is the author of the novel Running Dogs (Scribe). She is also the Director of Content at MICRO, a non profit which builds six-foot-tall science museums.