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SIRENS & MUSES by Antonia Angress

Submitted by mcutler on Fri, 2022-07-15 21:35
Posted on July 15, 2022 in
SIRENS & MUSES by Antonia Angress
Antonia Angress’s debut novel SIRENS & MUSES published to warm reception this week. The Minneapolis Star Tribune published a wonderful review of the novel, in which Ellen Akins praises: “Angress is very good at getting what people think about and what they want when they make art, whether from political conviction, a performative impulse or a deep need to convey what they see…The moments of recognition and frustration, revelation and betrayal, desire and revulsion are convincing and moving, and Angress' portrayal of the intersection — or disconnect — of art, politics, idealism and practicality within the web of familial, romantic,and professional relationships is painterly, in the best sense of the word.” Angress was interviewed by Eva Dunsky for the Chicago Review of Books, where she shared her writing process for SIRENS & MUSES: “I worked on including either imagistic or thematic echoes so that the different storylines were speaking to each other even if they weren’t intersecting…There’s sort of a meta aspect to this book—a lot of the ideas and anxieties it explores were ideas and anxieties I had as I was writing it. I picture the book as a problem I kept creating as I was trying to solve it, almost like an Escher drawing: a problem that falls into itself again and again and which you can’t climb out of because you’re creating it as you go.” The book was featured on must-read lists from The Millions, Reads Rainbow, and Lambda Literary, and Lit Hub featured a personal essay by Angress titled “Fantasy vs. Reality: When the Muse Finally Speaks.” Ballantine Books published SIRENS & MUSES on July 12, 2022.