Literature & Fiction
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Sirens & Muses: A Novel
Four artists are drawn into a web of rivalry and desire at an elite art school and on the streets of New York in this magnificent debut for fans of Writers & Lovers and The Goldfinch.
"Captures the ache-inducing quality of art and desire . . . a deeply relatable and profoundly enjoyable read, one drenched in prismatic color and light."-Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of With Teeth
It's 2011: America is in a deep recession and Occupy Wall Street is escalating. But at the elite Wrynn College of Art, students paint and sculpt in a rarefied bubble. Louisa Arceneaux is a thoughtful, observant nineteen-year-old when she transfers to Wrynn as a scholarship student, but she soon finds herself adrift in an environment that prizes novelty over beauty. Complicating matters is Louisa's unexpected attraction to her charismatic roommate, Karina Piontek, the preternaturally gifted but mercurial daughter of wealthy art collectors. Gradually, Louisa and Karina are drawn into an intense sensual and artistic relationship, one that forces them to confront their deepest desires and fears. But Karina also can't shake her fascination with Preston Utley, a senior and anti-capitalist Internet provocateur, who is publicly feuding with visiting professor and political painter Robert Berger-a once-controversial figurehead seeking to regain relevance.
When Preston concocts an explosive hoax, the fates of all four artists are upended as each is unexpectedly thrust into the cutthroat New York art world. Now all must struggle to find new identities in art, in society, and among each other. In the process, they must find either their most authentic terms of life-of success, failure, and joy-or risk losing themselves altogether.
With a canny, critical eye, Sirens & Muses overturns notions of class, money, art, youth, and a generation's fight to own their future.
"Captures the ache-inducing quality of art and desire . . . a deeply relatable and profoundly enjoyable read, one drenched in prismatic color and light."-Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of With Teeth
It's 2011: America is in a deep recession and Occupy Wall Street is escalating. But at the elite Wrynn College of Art, students paint and sculpt in a rarefied bubble. Louisa Arceneaux is a thoughtful, observant nineteen-year-old when she transfers to Wrynn as a scholarship student, but she soon finds herself adrift in an environment that prizes novelty over beauty. Complicating matters is Louisa's unexpected attraction to her charismatic roommate, Karina Piontek, the preternaturally gifted but mercurial daughter of wealthy art collectors. Gradually, Louisa and Karina are drawn into an intense sensual and artistic relationship, one that forces them to confront their deepest desires and fears. But Karina also can't shake her fascination with Preston Utley, a senior and anti-capitalist Internet provocateur, who is publicly feuding with visiting professor and political painter Robert Berger-a once-controversial figurehead seeking to regain relevance.
When Preston concocts an explosive hoax, the fates of all four artists are upended as each is unexpectedly thrust into the cutthroat New York art world. Now all must struggle to find new identities in art, in society, and among each other. In the process, they must find either their most authentic terms of life-of success, failure, and joy-or risk losing themselves altogether.
With a canny, critical eye, Sirens & Muses overturns notions of class, money, art, youth, and a generation's fight to own their future.
Editorial Reviews
"Donna Tartt's The Secret History meets Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings in this entrancing portrait of 3 young artists who meet at an elite college at the height of the Occupy movement. Angress so deftly portrays the splendor and squalor of trying to create something great in the face of rampant capitalism, of love and lust in the face of tooth-and-claw competition."-Electric Lit
"Antonia Angress has written her exceedingly good debut novel, a shrewd and expertly sustained rumination on what it takes to be a self-supporting artist and whether it's even worth it. . . . Gripping . . . [A] dazzler of a debut novel."-Shelf Awareness
"Antonia Angress is so talented, and her depiction of young artists-with their egos and inspirations and ambitions-is unforgettably impressive. Read. This. Book."-Julie Schumacher, author of Dear Committee Members and The Shakespeare Requirement
"Brilliant . . . This narrative is intricate, moving, and often funny, and its scenes are beautifully crafted. . . . A wonderful book."-Charles Baxter, author of The Sun Collective
"Sirens & Muses features characters as flawed as they are talented-full of desire, ambition, and aching regret. Their journeys engrossed me till the very last page."-Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
"Powerful, elegant, and mesmerizing, Sirens & Muses reimagines ambition, passion, identity, and the intricate bonds between women. Antonia Angress is a writer to watch."-Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of The Revisioners
"Sirens & Muses captivated me with its well-drawn, complex characters and vivid descriptions and settings. Antonia Angress is a keen observer of relationships, and this is a gorgeously rich and thoughtful novel."-Annie Hartnett, author of
"Antonia Angress has written her exceedingly good debut novel, a shrewd and expertly sustained rumination on what it takes to be a self-supporting artist and whether it's even worth it. . . . Gripping . . . [A] dazzler of a debut novel."-Shelf Awareness
"Antonia Angress is so talented, and her depiction of young artists-with their egos and inspirations and ambitions-is unforgettably impressive. Read. This. Book."-Julie Schumacher, author of Dear Committee Members and The Shakespeare Requirement
"Brilliant . . . This narrative is intricate, moving, and often funny, and its scenes are beautifully crafted. . . . A wonderful book."-Charles Baxter, author of The Sun Collective
"Sirens & Muses features characters as flawed as they are talented-full of desire, ambition, and aching regret. Their journeys engrossed me till the very last page."-Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
"Powerful, elegant, and mesmerizing, Sirens & Muses reimagines ambition, passion, identity, and the intricate bonds between women. Antonia Angress is a writer to watch."-Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of The Revisioners
"Sirens & Muses captivated me with its well-drawn, complex characters and vivid descriptions and settings. Antonia Angress is a keen observer of relationships, and this is a gorgeously rich and thoughtful novel."-Annie Hartnett, author of
Short Excerpt Teaser
Part One
Chapter One
Louisa's first assignment at Wrynn College of Art was paint home. She'd left home twelve days ago, and now, as she looked out the classroom window, it startled her still to see hills and sullen, huddled townhouses, the New England sky close and cold, nothing like at home, where the sky overwhelmed the land, a drama of clouds and rain and strange shafts of tawny light.
She'd never been on her own before. Her year at South Louisiana Community College didn't count. She had slept in her old bedroom, borrowed her mother's car to get to class, worked the same shifts at Chez Jacqueline, eaten Sunday dinner at Grandma and Pepere's.
Louisa was homesick. It was normal, she told herself. Even at nineteen-almost-twenty, it was normal. And so, alone in her studio, she'd cried a little as she painted Lake Martin at dusk, bald cypresses echoed by their dark reflections in the water. It was a placid scene, but ominous, tinged with danger, curdled at the edges like a faded bruise. In the background, low, swollen clouds gleamed with uncanny clarity and a flutter of pintails took off over the marsh. In the foreground, an ibis waded in the shallows, its bow-shaped beak slicing through the water. Its plumage was a soft, unglossed white, except for its black wingtips. Its pearly blue eye met the viewer's.
She'd chosen an ibis because Grandma had once told her that it symbolized resilience; it was the last animal to take shelter before a hurricane, and the first to reappear after the storm.
"No, not resilience," Mom had said, overhearing. "Regeneration. And wisdom."
Danger, Louisa thought. Optimism.
"Dinner," Pepere added. Hunting ibises was illegal, but he'd grown up shooting them for the table and occasionally still brought one home. The meat was orange and fishy.
Now, a thousand miles away from him, Louisa stood alone in an empty classroom. She'd arrived early to secure a spot on the southern wall, and she was pleased with how her painting looked there, bathed in that diffuse northern light, what Mom called painterly light. One window was cracked to let in a breeze, but the room still smelled sharply of oils and turpentine. Afternoon sun gilded the floorboards. As Louisa's classmates arrived and hung their work, she turned to the wall and ran her fingers over the thumbtack holes. The other sophomores all knew one another already, had spent Foundation Year together, and in their presence, Louisa felt furiously shy.
Maureen walked in, a manila folder under her arm. All professors went by their first names at Wrynn, which did nothing to make Maureen less formidable. Though her wardrobe consisted entirely of overlarge T-shirts and paint-stained cargo pants, the pockets full of jangly objects, she carried herself with the pugnacious confidence Louisa occasionally saw in certain older women who'd stopped caring what the world thought of them.
"Everyone ready?" said Maureen. She opened the folder. "We'll go alphabetically this time. Louisa Arceneaux, you're up." She pronounced it Are-SEE-necks.
"ARE-sin-no," Louisa corrected her softly. "It's French." She shifted so she was standing next to her painting with her back to the wall. She hugged her sketchbook to her chest as her classmates, all fifteen of them, gathered in a semicircle. Only Maureen brought a chair, its legs squeaking against the floor. She set it in front of Louisa's painting and sat down, crossing her arms.
There was a long silence, her classmates' faces unreadable. Maureen wore bifocals, and she had a habit of tipping up her chin when appraising a painting, as though she were looking down at it. Finally, Jack Culicchia, who wore a baseball cap embroidered with eat the rich, said: "My problem with your painting isn't that it's kitschy, exactly." He stood near the back, but he towered over everyone, his voice carrying clear across the room. He was known for his digital mashups of assassinated presidents and murdered rappers: The Notorious J.F.K., Tupac Lincoln, Freaky McKinley. "My problem with it is that it screams ‘I'm from the South,' but it's, like, Southern Gothic Lite."
Louisa bristled. She wasn't just from the South. She was from Acadiana. Expelled by the British from Nova Scotia, her Acadian ancestors had settled in the swamps of southwestern Louisiana before it was even a part of the United States. Pepere, who as a child had been beaten for speaking Cajun French at school, had served as an interpreter for American troops in France during World War II. She wasn't Southern; she was Cajun.
Louisa flipped to a blank page in her sketchbook. She hunched over and wrote southern gothic light, slowly, in neat cursive.
"What do we think about the fo...
Chapter One
Louisa's first assignment at Wrynn College of Art was paint home. She'd left home twelve days ago, and now, as she looked out the classroom window, it startled her still to see hills and sullen, huddled townhouses, the New England sky close and cold, nothing like at home, where the sky overwhelmed the land, a drama of clouds and rain and strange shafts of tawny light.
She'd never been on her own before. Her year at South Louisiana Community College didn't count. She had slept in her old bedroom, borrowed her mother's car to get to class, worked the same shifts at Chez Jacqueline, eaten Sunday dinner at Grandma and Pepere's.
Louisa was homesick. It was normal, she told herself. Even at nineteen-almost-twenty, it was normal. And so, alone in her studio, she'd cried a little as she painted Lake Martin at dusk, bald cypresses echoed by their dark reflections in the water. It was a placid scene, but ominous, tinged with danger, curdled at the edges like a faded bruise. In the background, low, swollen clouds gleamed with uncanny clarity and a flutter of pintails took off over the marsh. In the foreground, an ibis waded in the shallows, its bow-shaped beak slicing through the water. Its plumage was a soft, unglossed white, except for its black wingtips. Its pearly blue eye met the viewer's.
She'd chosen an ibis because Grandma had once told her that it symbolized resilience; it was the last animal to take shelter before a hurricane, and the first to reappear after the storm.
"No, not resilience," Mom had said, overhearing. "Regeneration. And wisdom."
Danger, Louisa thought. Optimism.
"Dinner," Pepere added. Hunting ibises was illegal, but he'd grown up shooting them for the table and occasionally still brought one home. The meat was orange and fishy.
Now, a thousand miles away from him, Louisa stood alone in an empty classroom. She'd arrived early to secure a spot on the southern wall, and she was pleased with how her painting looked there, bathed in that diffuse northern light, what Mom called painterly light. One window was cracked to let in a breeze, but the room still smelled sharply of oils and turpentine. Afternoon sun gilded the floorboards. As Louisa's classmates arrived and hung their work, she turned to the wall and ran her fingers over the thumbtack holes. The other sophomores all knew one another already, had spent Foundation Year together, and in their presence, Louisa felt furiously shy.
Maureen walked in, a manila folder under her arm. All professors went by their first names at Wrynn, which did nothing to make Maureen less formidable. Though her wardrobe consisted entirely of overlarge T-shirts and paint-stained cargo pants, the pockets full of jangly objects, she carried herself with the pugnacious confidence Louisa occasionally saw in certain older women who'd stopped caring what the world thought of them.
"Everyone ready?" said Maureen. She opened the folder. "We'll go alphabetically this time. Louisa Arceneaux, you're up." She pronounced it Are-SEE-necks.
"ARE-sin-no," Louisa corrected her softly. "It's French." She shifted so she was standing next to her painting with her back to the wall. She hugged her sketchbook to her chest as her classmates, all fifteen of them, gathered in a semicircle. Only Maureen brought a chair, its legs squeaking against the floor. She set it in front of Louisa's painting and sat down, crossing her arms.
There was a long silence, her classmates' faces unreadable. Maureen wore bifocals, and she had a habit of tipping up her chin when appraising a painting, as though she were looking down at it. Finally, Jack Culicchia, who wore a baseball cap embroidered with eat the rich, said: "My problem with your painting isn't that it's kitschy, exactly." He stood near the back, but he towered over everyone, his voice carrying clear across the room. He was known for his digital mashups of assassinated presidents and murdered rappers: The Notorious J.F.K., Tupac Lincoln, Freaky McKinley. "My problem with it is that it screams ‘I'm from the South,' but it's, like, Southern Gothic Lite."
Louisa bristled. She wasn't just from the South. She was from Acadiana. Expelled by the British from Nova Scotia, her Acadian ancestors had settled in the swamps of southwestern Louisiana before it was even a part of the United States. Pepere, who as a child had been beaten for speaking Cajun French at school, had served as an interpreter for American troops in France during World War II. She wasn't Southern; she was Cajun.
Louisa flipped to a blank page in her sketchbook. She hunched over and wrote southern gothic light, slowly, in neat cursive.
"What do we think about the fo...
