Nicholas Bruner
Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Young Adult Author
What I’m Reading: Muse
Muse, by LCW Allingham, is a horror novella about the art world in New York. Mr. Green is a scout for up-and-coming artists, Mr. Silver is a gallery owner, and Mr. Black is an art critic. Together, they dominate the New York art scene and control the careers of all the top artists in the city.
Two of the young artists under the wings of the three men are Cedric Fleck and Dana Glonciel. They enjoy prestigious showings at Mr. Silver’s gallery and the galleries of several of his connections, command high prices for their works, and take the purest and most expensive drugs at the lavish, decadent parties the three men throw.
But something’s wrong, and the artists know it. Despite their success, they feel run down. The endless rounds of parties and gallery showings takes its toll, of course, as well as the recovery from the drug and alcohol hangovers. But more than that, they feel like something is eating away inside them, maybe at their very souls. And the three art patrons just might have something to do with it.
Mr. Green, Mr. Silver, and Mr. Black could keep going, living on the energy they steal from the artists. Unbeknownst to their proteges, they’re centuries old, and are the ones who drove van Gogh crazy and drove other artists to suicide and despair, all to feed their hunger. But now, Mr. Green had discovered a new artist, Terra Desmarais, finding her in, of all places, some trailer park in flyover country.
Terra’s art is brilliant, and Mr. Green brings her to New York where the three men drool over the creative energy she exudes. But there’s something…different about Terra. She’s not too interested in their parties or their drugs, just in making art. She meets the other artists and convinces them to move away from New York or take a sabbatical from painting. What’s more, she seems to know more about Mr. Green, Mr. Silver, and Mr. Black than she lets on. It is possible she knows what kind of monsters they really are?
Muse reminds me a lot of The Picture of Dorian Gray (reviewed here). The setting in a world of artists concerned with the appearance of things, the monsters who stay eternally young via art, the extravagant yet precise language–all evoke Oscar Wilde’s classic horror novel. But while it may echo Dorian Gray, Muse definitely has its own agenda. It’s less about the temptation of aesthetic pleasure, as in Dorian Gray, and more about the way ambition and power can corrupt those who once had the most idealistic intentions.
I found Muse to be a fascinating little book, stylishly written and with a sly humor to go along with its more macabre scenes. It won’t be for everyone though– it packs a significant amount of graphic body horror, drug use, and sexuality in under 100 pages. It’s definitely a story for adults. But I highly recommend it for those who want to read a smart, sophisticated horror story set in an elegant, cosmopolitan world.
