Product Description

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.

Passionate, provocative, and highly engaging, Spending displays Gordon's maverick feminism, her extraordinary wit, and her unique perspectives on art, money, men, sex -- and the desires of women.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #641106 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.com Review
Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. "Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?" Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot.

Yet Spending proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia. Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? "I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS."

Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. "If you call yourself a sex worker," Rachel poses, "you don't have to get freaked out." Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, Spending is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites "because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot." B, it turns out, is Spending's problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, A Utopian Divertimento, in mind.

From Library Journal
Librarians, buy this book! But be prepared for strong reactions from the writer's legion of fans. 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.
-?Starr Smith, Marymount Univ. Lib., Arlington, Va.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
What might be called a kind of feminist apostasy suffuses this often entertaining but ultimately disappointing fifth novel from the author of The Rest of Life (1993), among other fiction, and a recent memoir, The Shadow Man (1996). The first-person story is told (to an implied listener) by Monica Szabo, a 50-year-old painter, long divorced and an absentee mother to her two daughters, struggling to support her artistic vocation--until a wealthy commodities trader (whom she identifies as ``B''), a self-described ``intermittent voluptuary,'' offers to become her ``muse'' (i.e., patron). Monica and B embark on a productive and loving relationship that rekindles her sexual ardor (much of Spending reads like a 9« Weeks for intellectuals) and strengthens her resolve to paint subjects heretofore treated only by male artists. Specifically, using the willing B as her model, Monica gives form to her chance insight about traditional crucifixion images: ``Suppose all those dead Christs weren't dead, just postorgasmic?'' Sure enough, her exhibit entitled ``Spent Men'' offends the religious right and commands instant critical and public attention, and Monica becomes rich and famous--just as B loses his fortune, and their roles as rescuer and rescued are instantly reversed. Little else happens (though she does eventually reveal his first name: a neat, and rather subtle, joke) in an often discursive narrative that wavers between spiky satirical observation and annoyingly moony detailings of the pair's interminable sex play (there are entirely too many utterances like ``It was wonderful going out into the cold with my lips abraded from lovemaking and the salt of [an] unhealthy meal''). Oddly, Monica is much more believable as an artist than as lover or mother--but, alas, she's the only real person here. Supporting characters are frustratingly briefly sketched, and B is a walking (come to think of it, usually a prone) wish fulfillment. Still, (the wittily titled) Spending works well as social and cultural commentary, if not precisely as fiction. Not Gordon's best, but well worth reading. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Something for Everyone
The triumph of this book is not just that it makes one want to read everything Mary Gordon has written, but that it (hopefully) prompts the reader to discover more about art history, feminist art and women artists. As a feminist art historian, I read this book with avid interest and have since made it required reading for two of my college classes. Students respond to its frank discussion of female sexuality, copious references to art, fast pace and breezy, lyrical writing style. I admire Mary Gordon's firm grasp and detailed description of the artistic process, knowledge of feminist art history and criticism, willingness to discuss such challenging issues as censorship, protest and patronage and obvious and infectious love of art.

Witty, fun, intelligent and altogether delightful
This was quite simply the most enjoyable book I've read in years. Don't judge this one by its cover - it's not erotica in the usual sense, but an exploration of art and life with the senses and the intellect. The unconventional narrator tosses off incredibly pithy, occasionally cynical observations on money, fashion, and sex in the provocative tradition of Wilde. Best of all is the insightful portrayal of the artistic process, written about painting but equally identifiable by anyone who writes, sculpts, composes, etc. and finds both pain and ecstasy, fear and pride, in the labor of creation. I highly recommend this novel as a thoroughly entertaining, exuberantly feminist* yarn.

*that need not be an oxymoron, folks

Beautifully Written Prose, Compelling Characters
Monica Szabo is a 50 something artist looking for something. She finds something as B, responds to her question during a speech about where the male muses are. But B is much more than just her muse, he becomes her lover and her financial support at the same time.

Some really important questions are asked as we move through the book. For me, her attempts to rise above the fact that she was having sex with B and he was giving her money for her art and whether that made her a whore was one I gave a lot of thought to. Moreover, I think some really interesting takes on modern day feminism were explored.

The thing that made this book so compelling for me was that Monica is not a likeable character in the least. She's a horrible mother, she's selfish, she doesn't treat B very well most of the time and yet, you want to read more about her. Very few authors can suck you in that way.

I didn't see this book as a romance novel. Goodness knows I've read enough of them. There is no ease here, no real romance. Sex sure, but a lot of difficult exploration of personal stuff keeps it far from the harlequin romance descriptions I've seen in some other reviews. The real difficulty of balancing one's feminist preconceptions with the reality of sharing a life with someone else, especially when they are supporting you financially brings it to a completely different level.

No, the book isn't perfect but it is compelling and beautifully written. This is a rare and delicious treat.