Reviewed by Joanna Pearson
9.20.07

The obvious (and intentional) irony of Kate Christensen's new novel, The Great Man, is that it's not about a great man at all, but rather the four women sucked into his orbit. Oscar Feldman, now five years dead, is the man in question. An esteemed late-twentieth century New York painter, Feldman was also a larger-than-life presence, embodying the romantic caricature of the excessive, womanizing male artist. Christensen's novel opens with two rival biographers competing to interview the women closest to Feldman. What unfolds is a resonant exploration not of the object of the biographer’s quest, but rather the desires and friendships of four very different women radiating out from him.

Along with sleeping with most of his models, Feldman also maintained two separate households—one with his wife, Abigail, who raised their autistic son Ethan in Manhattan, and the other with his mistress Teddy, who raised twin daughters in Brooklyn. Feldman’s cranky sister Maxine struggled to achieve a similar reputation for her abstract work, even as Feldman himself cemented his reputation as a stalwart and unrepentant figurative painter of the female nude. Thus Christensen establishes, with Abigail, Teddy, Teddy’s best friend Lila, and Maxine, an Oscar-related matrix prime for alliances, spats, and revelation. As is often the case, the characters’ versions of Feldman ultimately reveal far more about each character herself than they do about the topic of the biography.

Part of what makes these revelations so interesting is that all of Christensen's central characters are women in their 70s or 80s. Rather than old crones, grandmas, or wise women though, Christensen's sept- and octogenarians are vibrant, even erotic, figures still pulsing with desire and frustration. Christensen herself, in an interview about her novel says this:

I set out to allow my characters, women in their 70s and 80s, a kind of frank sexuality I haven’t seen in “older” women in literature. Teddy is English, given to innuendo and flirtatious ceremony more than blatant lust, but she says “fuck” and is excited by food and wine and the idea of sex, the language of sex—Abigail, the Conservative Jew, is somewhat repressed, but her three-year-long affair with Edward, Ethan’s poetry-reading, cognac-sipping young doctor, provided her with a lifetime’s worth of memories and erotic longing…Maxine, a nonreligious Jew and a frank lesbian, is lusty and bluntly so, unrepressed and straightforward…

Maxine, Feldman’s sister and fellow, is of the Gertrude Stein mold, although with neither Stein’s charisma nor her renown. As she unleashes her frustration towards another younger, more successful artist, Paula, we catch a glimpse not just of what makes successful art, but also, and perhaps more importantly, what makes a successful artistic persona. Christensen is interested in the cult of personality, how this influences our perception of art—and how the parameters change across the genders. Both Lila and Abigail too are in some sense frustrated artists, or at least artistically-minded, have put themselves on hold in order to be caretakers. Non-artist Teddy herself is a woman perhaps most in tune to the aesthetics and pleasures of living. Still, the difference between aesthetics and the capital-A Artist is apparent.

Indeed, Christensen succeeds in creating a cast characters who are all still very engaged with the pleasures of living, be they sexual, intellectual, or culinary. In fact, much of the reader’s delight in this book too, is in how well Christensen captures these pleasures. Christensen’s prose is full of the elegant turn of phrase, clear, yet rich. The characters themselves, even when unpleasant with one another, engage in snappy and thoughtful dialogue. Reading their dialogue as they banter about art or relationships is a bit overhearing some imaginary intellectual dinner party. Even the bitter verbal sparring is somehow satisfying, both to the reader and, one suspects, to the character’s themselves, in its sophistication. Writing about sexual desire in older people, Christensen manages both to be a realist and yet generous, capturing the erotic charge and excitement still central to these women’s lives. And, of course, it would be hard not to mention Christensen’s descriptions of her character’s meals, which induce salivation without ever being over-wrought or obtrusive—even as Christensen cleverly acknowledges the danger of attempting to describe food in her early scene with Teddy and a biographer after she declares that no man should ever use the word “delicious”:

“This looks”—he cleared his throat—“delicious, but now I can’t say it.”
Their eyes met.
“A pernicious word,” she said with smug satisfaction.
“Only because you made it into one. It was a fine word before I got here.”
“I only pointed out what ought to be clear to everyone.”
“A habit of yours.”
“Henry,” she said, pouring the wine, “eat your supper.”

He augmented his plate with things from the bowls Teddy had already set out: toasted sliced almonds, homemade apricot chutney, fried banana-pepper rings, minced raw red onion, matchstick-size pieces of fresh jicama, wedges of lime.

The food, which looked bland and unprepossessing, was subtle and amazing. the couscous tasted nutty and buttery. The rich chicken stew was laced with hints of saffron, cinnamon, cayenne, lemon zest, and something else…

Thus Christensen simultaneously captures the pleasure of barbed verbal flirtation while lingering over the more bodily pleasure of food. Much like the legend of the great Oscar Feldman himself, the novel overall is frankly sensual—delicious, actually, to read.

In a final clever flourish, Christensen frames her novel with two dead-on imitation New York Times pieces: the first, an obituary for Feldman, and the latter, a book review for the two Oscar Feldman biographies that we will never read. The final sentence reads, “Abigail Feldman, the late Maxine Feldman, and Teddy St. Cloud emerge in both biographies as fascinating subjects in their own right, so fascinating that this female reviewer couldn’t help wishing Mr. Feldman had moved over and given his real-life women a little more room”—which, of course, is exactly what Christensen has given us in The Great Man. This novel is a response to every great man (behind whom is a great ego, as Christensen quips) who has ever overshadowed the creative women around him—and what satisfaction it is.