AN OBJECT OF BEAUTY BY STEVE MARTIN, WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON, $32.99.
This is Steve Martin’s third novel and, Hollywood star status aside, he’s a pretty decent novelist. The setting is one close to his heart, if a little rarefied – the New York art scene.
Yet he imbibes it with sass in the form of heroine Lacey Yeager, an ambitious, stunning, fearlessly self-confident art wannabe, who works her way up from the dusty basements of Sotheby’s to the Big Apple’s coolest galleries, capturing the hearts of men and women as she climbs. The book’s narrator is a 30-something nerdy intellectual (shades of Mr Martin perhaps?), who is also the mouthpiece for some sneaky art critiques.
Intrigue, affairs, lots of sex – which is, at times, a little stilted – are played out against a backdrop of recent New York history, from 9/11 to the GFC. The result is a slightly soulless, but enjoyable romp.
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