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Book Cover
Book
Author Hand, Elizabeth

Title Radiant days : a novel / by Elizabeth Hand

Publisher New York : Viking, 2012

Copies

LOCATION CALL NO. STATUS
 Maine State Lib. Authors  OFFSITE H2362r    LIBR USE ONLY  
 Maine State Lib. Stacks  813 H236r 2012    AVAILABLE  MSCC
Phys Descr 287 pages ; 22 cm
Note Sequel to: Illyria
Includes bibliographical references (p. 285-287)
Summary A 20th-century teen artist and 19th-century French poet Arthur Rimbaud transcend time and place in this luminous paean to the transformative power of art. In September 1977, 18-year-old Merle leaves rural Virginia to attend the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. Her drawings catch the eye of drawing instructor Clea, who initiates a romantic relationship with Merle. Overwhelmed by the sophisticated urban art scene, Merle drifts out of school. When Clea drops her, a homeless Merle desperately spray-paints her signature sun-eye graffiti across the city until she encounters a mercurial tramp who mystically connects her with the visionary Rimbaud, in the bloom of his artistic powers at age 16. Incredulous over their stunning time travel, Merle and Rimbaud recognize they are kindred spirits who live to create. Hand deftly alternates between Merles first-person, past-tense story and a third-person account of Rimbaud during the Franco-Prussian War of 1871-72, laced with excerpts from his poems and letters. Suffused with powerful images of light, this intensely lyrical portrait of two androgynous young artists who magically traverse a century to briefly escape their equally disturbing worlds expands the themes of artistic isolation and passion Hand first introduced in Illyria.
Subject Authors, American -- Maine
Women art students -- Fiction
Rimbaud, Arthur, 1854-1891 -- Fiction
Time travel -- Fiction
Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) -- Fiction
Washington (D.C.) -- Fiction
Europe -- Fiction
Authors, American -- Maine
OCLC # 742305894
ISBN # 9780670011353
0670011355