There’s a sarcophagus at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, created in the 3rd century A.D., that depicts an Olympic war: the nine muses, patron deities of writers and thinkers, pitted by the gods against the half human, half birds sirens best known for attempting to lure Homer’s Odysseus to his death with their seductive song. In myth, the contest between the sirens and muses began as one of artistic talent, but has been enshrined in art as the battle turns rather more literal: the muses are whipping and side-eyeing the sirens, and have plucked out their feathers and turned them into headdresses.
In Antonia Angress’ debut, themes of muses and siren songs play out for four people at Wrynn, an elite arts college: three students—rich and prodigal Karina, anarchic Preston, and shy Louisa (a painter of birds and women)—find themselves entangled in a triangle of love and artistic jealousy, while Richard, a professor and once-lauded artist, butts heads with Preston over the point and place of political art. The book sees all four characters leave campus for New York City and, set during the early days of the Occupy movement, grapples with questions of art and commerce. There’s art theft (of all kinds), art pranks, good art, and art that reminded me of a Jemima Kirke line from Lena Dunham’s 2010 web series, Delusional Downtown Divas: “It’s a mixture of cocaine and digestives, mounted on wood.”
