Sirens & Muses: A Novel

Four artists are drawn into a web of rivalry and desire at an elite art school and on the streets of New York in this gripping, provocative, and supremely entertaining (BuzzFeed) debutNational Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree Captures the acheinducing quality of art and desire . . . a deeply relatable and profoundly enjoyable read, one drenched in prismatic color and light.Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of With TeethFINALIST FOR THE MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Glamour, PopSugar, DebutifulIts 2011: America is in a deep recession and Occupy Wall Street is escalating. But at the elite Wrynn College of Art, students paint and sculpt in a rarefied bubble. Louisa Arceneaux is a thoughtful, observant nineteenyearold when she transfers to Wrynn as a scholarship student, but she soon finds herself adrift in an environment that prizes novelty over beauty. Complicating matters is Louisas unexpected attraction to her charismatic roommate, Karina Piontek, the preternaturally gifted but mercurial daughter of wealthy art collectors. Gradually, Louisa and Karina are drawn into an intense sensual and artistic relationship, one that forces them to confront their deepest desires and fears. But Karina also cant shake her fascination with Preston Utley, a senior and anticapitalist Internet provocateur, who is publicly feuding with visiting professor and political painter Robert Bergera oncecontroversial figurehead seeking to regain relevance.When Preston concocts an explosive hoax, the fates of all four artists are upended as each is unexpectedly thrust into the cutthroat New York art world. Now all must struggle to find new identities in art, in society, and among each other. In the process, they must find either their most authentic terms of lifeof success, failure, and joyor risk losing themselves altogether.With a canny, critical eye, Sirens & Muses overturns notions of class, money, art, youth, and a generations fight to own their future.