THE OBJECT OF BEAUTY.

AN OBJECT OF BEAUTY by STEVE MARTIN.

BACK COVER BLURB: Lacey Yeager is beautiful, captivating, ambitious - and determined to conquer the exhilarating New York art scene. Groomed at Sotheby's, and hungry not only to climb the career ladder but also to infiltrate the city's social elite, Lacey charms men and women, old and young, rich  .... and even richer. Art prices are rocketing and Lacey inveigles her way to heart of the boom. But just as the art bubble looks set to burst, a secret from Lacey's own past threatens to detonate everything she has worked for ...

FIRST SENTENCE {Part 1: Chapter 1}: I am tired, so very tired of thinking about Lacey Yeager, yet I worry that unless I write her story down, and see it bound and tidy on my bookshelf, I will be unable to write about anything else.

MEMORABLE MOMENT {Page 248}: "What was the Gober like?" Brooke asked.

"It's a kitchen sink," said Hinton.

"A what?" said Saul Nathanson.

"It's like a kitchen sink that hangs on a wall, but with an elongated back'" Flores told him. "Plaster and wood: it's an amazing piece."

Kip Stringer couldn't resist: "The sink is evocative of cleaning, but the fact it is on a wall, without plumbing, not functioning, creates cognitive dissonance. It embars the viewer from the action it implies." 

SOURCE: A Readers Group read.

MY THOUGHTS: The beauty of reading groups for me is that you get to read all manner of books that you may well not have ever considered. Something that sometimes pays off and other times doesn't .... alas in this instance I'm afraid this proved to be the latter.

I might well suggest that Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) not give up his day job but (a) that would be incredibly rude and (b) I'm informed that he is no stranger to the art world or, indeed, for that matter, having written two previous books (neither of them about art I hasten to add), the literary world.

Part novel but what I'd describe as more of a whose-who and whats-what in the art world. I'm hopeful that this might appeal to those with an interest in the art world but I'm afraid I struggled.

Seemingly predisposed to ramble without actually saying much, Mr Martin has an awful tendency to capture scenes in excruciating detail. Perhaps necessary if this were a film script but unnecessary here ... or so I felt.

Not too keen on Lacey as a main character but then arguably this should have been neither here nor there .... if hers was a well written character but like the others she was pretty much instantly forgettable.  

Disappointed and puzzled as to how little we actually came to know the narrator (supposedly Lacey's closest friend despite what seemed like her contempt for him ). I thought this very odd given the importance of his role come the end of the novel. 

Ultimately if nothing else I'd like to be able to say that I came away from the novel having learnt something of the art world but, a deadly dull read, I'm afraid I found myself, my attention wandering, unable to retain much of what I was reading.