Age Gaps, Trad Caths, Canceled Surrealists, and Garbagemen

Sam Buntz on a new novel from Emmalea Russo

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Vivienne: a Novel

by Emmalea Russo

Arcade, 247 pp. $20.95

A pioneering surrealist’s life and work are reevaluated in Emmalea Russo’s novel Vivienne

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It's not unusual to feel like the New York art world is detached from the common fundament of humanity. Andy Warhol is an iconic example: cool, ironic, above-it-all. Yet, secretly, beneath this impassive façade, Warhol was a devout Byzantine Catholic, who volunteered in a soup kitchen and attended Mass regularly. Lifting the veil like this is helpful. It gives us a sense that behind all the surreal antics and advanced concepts, artists are also people suffering through the same tragicomic round of birth, copulation, and death—while seeking escape from it.