The Right Imbalance

At National Public Radio, Maud Newton recommends Samantha Peale’s The American Painter Emma Dial.

Emma, in the employ of a critically acclaimed painter, hasn’t visited her studio in a year. Her self-loathing is palpable; the prose vibrates with the heat of her disgust. (The author herself served as a studio assistant to Jeff Koons — the controversial “King of Kitsch” — and would have had the opportunity to witness this creative trap first-hand.)