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    Life Drawing: A Novel
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    Life Drawing: A Novel
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    Life Drawing: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    Life Drawing: A Novel

    Written by Robin Black

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR

    Augusta Edelman-Gus to her friends-is a painter, a wife, and not always the best judge of her own choices-one of them bad enough that she and her husband, Owen, have fled their longtime city home and its reminders of troubling events. Now, three years into their secluded country life, Gus works daily on the marriage she nearly lost, discovers new inspiration for her art, and contemplates the mysteries of a childhood tragedy. But this quiet, healing rhythm is forever shattered one hot July day when a stranger moves into the abandoned house next door and crosses more boundaries than just those between their lands. A fierce, honest, and moving portrait of a woman grappling with her fate, Life Drawing is a debut novel as beautiful and unsparing as the human heart.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 15, 2014
    ISBN9780804191012
    Unavailable
    Life Drawing: A Novel
    Author

    Robin Black

    Robin Black is the author of the critically acclaimed short story collection If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, a finalist for the Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize and the novel Life Drawing. Her stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including O, The Oprah Magazine and the New York Times Magazine. A recipient of fellowships from the Leeway Foundation and the MacDowell Colony, Black was the 2012 Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bryn Mawr College and has taught most recently in the Brooklyn College MFA Program. She lives with her family in Philadelphia. robinblack.net @Robin_Black

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    Reviews for Life Drawing

    3.5/5

    127 ratings46 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A random book I picked up from the city library based on its name. Now what I was thinking, but unexpectedly good. An enchanting story about seclusion, betrayal, art, life. Very real. I could not tear myself away.
    • 4/5
      Why, yes, life is complicated. And relationships are MESSY. This is my first Robin Black novel, and I loved her writing. I will be reading more... for sure.
    • 4/5
      A solid look at long-term relationships and the long-term repercussions of betrayal, trust, and seduction in the face of forgiveness.
    • 2/5
      Life Drawing. Robin Black. 2014. Gus, the narrator and an artist, and her husband Owen, a writer move out of the city into a messy, comfortable farmhouse when an aunt leaves them a little money. They’re contented to be alone and work for the most part, although Owen is beset with writer’s block, but Gus is painting away and it is hard for Owen. Alison, a new divorcee, moves to the deserted house next door and gradually becomes involved in their life, to the dismay of Owen. Right away, you know Alison will bring trouble, however the trouble is Nora, Alison daughter who is immediately attracted to Owen. The book dragged in parts, but I enjoyed reading about the Gus’ paintings and how she developed them. A nice little readable romance that has enough suspense to get the plot going.
    • 4/5
      Emotional and raw, Life Drawing takes readers deep into the inner workings of a marriage and the outside forces that affect it. After overcoming a rocky patch in their marriage, Owen and Gus isolate themselves by moving into the country. After a number of years with only each other for companionship, their little world changes when a neighbor moves in nearby. The chain of events that unfolds illuminates the intentionality required in a marriage and overall, the depths of human relationships.
    • 3/5
      This book... I really wanted to like it a lot more than I did. It wasn't bad by any means just not enough there to keep me glued to the book.The story is about Owen and Gus (Augustus) who live out in the country all by themselves until one day, Alison moves in next door, and they suddenly have a neighbor. *gasp* They quickly made friends and in a short time, Alison's daughter, Nora, moves in with her and the problems begin.This story tells of consequences regarding the decisions we make and how quickly relationships with one another can unravel in the blink of an eye.
    • 4/5
      I was quite drawn in by this surprising little book. I received it as part of the Early Reviewers program and, admittedly, let it sit for quite a while because I was never "in the mood" for it. Once I picked it up, though, I was really immersed in the lives of the characters and enjoyed the elegant, but simple way Black communicated Gus and Owen's domestic tension (and sometimes bliss). Although I did see the end coming after a while I didn't mind and I felt completely satisfied with the way she wrapped up the story. I felt the addition of Gus's father's deteriorating health was a well-done touch and mirrored their disintegrating relationship at times. I would have liked to have heard a little more from the sister, Jan. Highly recommend this and look forward to more from this author.
    • 4/5
      Some books have first lines that really draw you in. Even when the line tells you the outcome of the book, you read along curiously, wanting to know how the book will come full circle to the outcome already contained in its very first words. It gives you expectations and for those of us, like me, who can't help ourselves, it challenges us to figure out how the author is taking us on this ride, drawing attention to the underlying structure of the story, the craft of the writing itself. Robin Black's novel, Life Drawing, is a book that does just this. It is a careful, character driven novel that opens with the intriguing line, "In the days leading up to my husband Owen's death, he visited Alison's house every afternoon." As hooks go, it's a pretty big one. Gus and her husband Owen live in the Pennsylvania countryside, remote and solitary by choice. Gus is a well received painter whose specialty is the quality of light on still lifes and landscapes and Owen is a critically acclaimed writer who has never quite found commercial success. They have retreated from their busy city life, to this house in the middle of nowhere to recover emotionally and professionally from Gus' affair with the father of one of her students. Owen has been unable to write in the handful of years since Gus' compulsive revelation of the affair, while Gus, by contrast, has lighted upon a new and energizing idea, wanting to capture the local WWI dead whose newspaper obituaries, with pictures, she has found crumpled up and used as insulation in the old farmhouse. But as the putative reason for Owen's writer's block, she cannot discuss her bubbling ideas with Owen, too aware that her productivity highlights afresh his own blank pages. When a teacher on sabbatical moves into the ramshackle place next door, Gus finds a confidante of sorts in Alison, herself a painter. Gus finds the emotional intimacy in her relationship with Alison that she is so unconsciously missing in her marriage so she confides perhaps more than she should to this virtual stranger. When Alison's daughter, Nora, comes to visit, the balance of everyone's relationships changes. Nora is a budding writer and she venerates Owen, spending hours in his company out in his converted barn, where he has done little writing thus far. The novel is quietly intense and like many character driven novels, doesn't present much action to move the story, relying instead on the psychological drama of the main characters. Gus narrates the novel from her position as the guilty party, sharing with the reader her desire to finally exonerate herself, her need to appear magnanimous to Owen, and her quest to seek understanding and absolution even as her art reflects her unstated, and perhaps unconscious, thoughts on the difference between potential and consequences, not only in reference to the boys dead so young and long ago but also in her own life and choices. With the focus entirely from Gus' point of view, there is the looming question of just how well she actually knows her husband and what drives him but ultimately, she is the only one left to tell the story after his death. Although little happens in the way of plot, there is a rising claustrophobic feeling to the novel, a subtly increasing tension that pulls the reader inexorably along ever closer to the fact of Owen's death. Black has written a stunning tale of jealousy, betrayal, and the treacherous undercurrents of a marriage already bowed to the breaking point by stress. As for the challenge of the ending? It ended in the only way that it could, an explosive release to the pent up tension of this carefully constructed tale. (Yes, I figured it out before the end. Will you?)
    • 2/5
      "Books on which the New York Times and I have irreconcilable differences of opinion".
    • 2/5
      Gus and Owen have moved to the country after inheriting some money from Owen's aunt. After living in splendid isolation for a while they find themselves with a neighbour, Alison. It is this and the arrival of Alison's daughter, Nora, that changes Gus and Owen's lives forever.I found this a hard book to engage with. As other reviewers have said, it has a claustrophobic and introspective feel to it and I have enjoyed this in other books, but this one failed to grab me. It's a slow read and I didn't care about the characters or what happened to them.Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a copy for review.
    • 4/5
      An intense study of two creative people and their marriage.
    • 3/5
      I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program. Had I not received a review copy of Life Drawing, I don't believe I would have finished reading it. It was okay, nothing more. The story deals with major themes surrounding love, aging, and above all, art. Owen and Gus escape retreat to the country to pursue a more peaceful marriage and their art - for one, painting, and for the other, writing. Soon, another woman - and another artist - enters the picture, complicating what should have been a simpler life. Tragedy ensues. Bleak.
    • 4/5
      Life Drawing is a rarely simple yet dense novel that peels away the layers of the main characters life layer by layer until you have a complexity that spans miles and years represented in a single painting. This novel explores the delicate bonds of friendship, married life and unfaithfulness, the relationship between the character and the house she lives in and the lives of people she must bring into light. I honestly really enjoyed this book just for the simple and artistic way that the main character related to everyone around her and how she incorporates the subtle details of her life into her work.
    • 4/5
      I received this book through Early Reviewers and I agree with another reviewer that it was hard for me to get into this one. It took me a few tries to really like it but after a couple of chapters, I really did enjoy the read and thought it was a beautifully written and well told story. It was a story about love, friendship, family and loss. A tragic tale of a seemingly perfect life that went terribly wrong. I would recommend this book.
    • 3/5
      When I first picked up Life Drawing, I found the book harder to get into than I expected. I actually had to set the book down for a few weeks and then had to come back to it which is why I gave it 3 star. All in all, I love the description used when describing the characters feelings. It really made it easy for me to feel what they were feeling when they felt it. Once I got over the hump, I couldn't put it back down.
    • 5/5
      Every once in awhile I read a book where I just want to get out a highlighter and mark every other line because the writing is simply that gorgeous, insightful, perceptive, and unique. That's how I felt about Life Drawing, everyone. It was so nice to be able to read a book and just sort of want to roll around in how absolutely gorgeous the words were. I feel like by saying that I make it sound like it was flowery or something, but that's not what I mean--I mean that it felt true.And the story was interesting as well. The story is the kind where something happens but it's the intensity of the characters that really carry it. Maybe this is a story that could happen to anyone, but it's interesting to read because you find something true there. Because life it's in particular messiness and with its particular consequences and joys and pains and hurts that resonates so strongly.I guess you could say it's a story about marriage, or a story about creating art, or a story about infidelity because it is most certainly about all of those things. A short plot summary is that it's the story about a middle aged couple, both artists, who live in seclusion until a new neighbor moves in and that changes everything as new relationships are formed and secrets shared.
    • 4/5
      I made a mistake in reading LIFE DRAWING by Robin Black. The mistake was not in the reading of the book, but the reading of the book after a piece of fluff that had my mind going 100mph. The first half of LIFE DRAWING had me groaning out of boredom and struggling to calm my racing thoughts, but then.. once I was able to calm down, I began to see just how beautiful the scenery was.Read the rest of this book at The Lost Entwife on August 8, 2014.
    • 5/5
      Life Drawing, by Robin Black, is a gripping novel about the long term effects and consequences of a marital infidelity. Thanks to an inheritance, Augusta and Owen move to a peaceful rural area. She is a painter and he is a writer. They lead a quiet life in spite of the ever present undercurrent of an affair that occurred and ended years ago. Unexpectedly and slowly their lives change when Alison, a divorcee, moves in next door. As a relationship between the three of them develops, suspense begins to mount. Their lives become intertwined in unexpected ways and no one could have foreseen the shocking events to come.Exquisite prose, well developed characters and an unforgettable story make this book a memorable reading experience. I recommend reading the novel-it is well worth the reader's time.I received this book for free through Library Thing Early Reviewers and I give this review of my own free will.
    • 4/5
      This book was a total surprise for me. One never knows what goes on in a marriage. We see people holding hands, couples that seem to have kept the spark alive for many years, yet we never knows what they have gone through, if they are as happy as they appear. I felt somewhat of a voyeur r3eading about the long term relationship portrayed in this book.This is Gus's story, a story chronicling the long term relationship and eventual marriage of her and Owen. He is a writer suffering from writer's block and she is an artist, trying a series of portraits forth first time. This I a simple story, but multi-layered, so not as simple as oft first appears. It starts out very slowly and I first I did not much like Gus. Yet, I found her story compelling. They live in almost total isolation in a farmhouse, trying to repair their marriage and the trust that had been broken between them. Then a new neighbor moves in and their isolation is broken.It s a rare author that can convey in words, the moods, the emotions and the needs of her characters and this author, for me, did just that. The characters are all flawed, made mistakes, feel love, friendship and resentment. This is a quiet, yet profound story, showing the impact of things that seem innocent at the time. I was drawn into their lives, and wished good things for them. But as in real life sometimes that is just not possible. ARC from publisher.
    • 4/5
      Life Drawing begins with a significant disclosure and the rest of the book tells the reader how and why. Owen and Augusta are "middle aged" creative folk - he is a writer, she is an artist, and they have relocated from the city to an isolated area where they are living happily, without close neighbors. They have had their relationship difficulties but have resolved to forgive and, if not forget, move on together.When Alison, a friendly, attractive woman who is recently divorced rents the nearby house, they develop a friendship that between the two women becomes very close, very quickly. When Alison's young adult daughter comes to visit, they all spend time together, and as they say, that's when things begin to get interesting. The story, although slow in spots, moves at a pace that made we want to 'see what happens next," and kept my attention and interest. It is a tale of different kinds of relationships that entertains.
    • 3/5
      Some authors are better suited to writing short stories versus novels. Robin Black could be one of these. If you haven't read her debut collection, IF I LOVE YOU, I WOULD TELL YOU THIS, please seek it out. Black has a marvelous sense of timing; her characters are fully realized; and her sense of place is superb.In her first novel, LIFE DRAWING, Black hits it out of the park with atmosphere and plot. Within the first 20 pages, the reader is drawn in to the story of Augusta and Owen, a long-time married couple still recovering from Augusta's affair with the father of a student. They're living out in the country, completed secluded, until a mysterious woman moves into the house next door.Here's where the story and characters bog down. It's hard to believe that the uber-private Augusta would so quickly take the new neighbor, Alison, into her confidence. And Owen is never fully sketched out, to the point of surprising the reader whenever he shows up.I ended the book feeling cheated. Black is a talented writer and I wanted more from her.
    • 4/5
      I won this arc from library thing. I liked this story., but it was a little slow telling. A neighbor moves next door to a couple and they become friends. The neighbors daughter ends up falling for the husband and devastating events happen.
    • 3/5
      Although " Life Drawing" doesn't quite live up to the literary heights the blurbs on the back would have you believe, Black's slick prose sees you through the predicable plot twists and keeps you reading until the very end.
    • 3/5
      Well, I'm just not sure about this book. The premise was interesting: a married couple, one an artist and one a writer, move to the country to pursue their art and recover from the wife's affair; and a neighbor with a seductive daughter ends up renting next door. But the book sort of plodded along, with dialogue that didn't sound particularly natural and many dull (for me, at least) segments about a clipping about some dead World War I soldiers Augusta found in the wall and began to paint. I never really cared about those soldiers or at all about her paintings.So after about three-quarters of slightly tedious reading, and after the husband and the daughter become predictably attracted to each other, a completely unbelievable tragic event occurs right near the end and the book ends.If the attraction and the tragedy had happened earlier, with more foreshadowing and psychological character preparation, I might have liked the book more.
    • 3/5
      Life Drawing is told from the perspective of a middle aged painter, Gus. She and her husband Owen have moved out into the country, where they live a solitary life, focused on their creative work. Though they have been together for years, they have only recently married, as a result of Gus's affair. Their time in the countryside remains undisturbed until Alison, their new next door neighbor, moves in.
    • 4/5
      Life Drawing is a haunting portrayal of the effects of loss and deception, and all the unforeseen consequences of deception. Robin Black has skillfully created fully realized, and fully human, characters that have stayed with me long after I finished reading.
    • 3/5
      Life Story by Robin Black is a story of a marriage, or more specifically, the continual problems in a marriage. The wife, Gus, is a painter, and her husband, Owen, are an artistic couple who leave the Philadelphia area to live in the country. When a neighbor, Alison, moves next door, their lives are changed forever. The novel weaves a tale of love, infidelity, infatuation, and tragedy. It tells of the struggles within a marriage to remain together despite betrayal. The way that Owen died seemed convoluted. It is a rich and well-done story but is overshadowed by sadness and ends in tragedy.
    • 5/5
      I received "Life Drawing" through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program, and it's the best one I have received. The story of a husband and wife, who are still affected by the wife's previous affair, had an undercurrent of heartbreak which was compelling. For the most part, I thoroughly enjoyed the tone and cadence of the writing. The ending was extremely well done. My favorite paragraph was: "There are often two conversations going on in a marriage. The one that you're having and the one you're not. Sometimes you don't even know when that second, silent one has begun."
    • 3/5
      Life Drawing is about a couple that moves into the country to try to get away from their old world, and work on their problems within the marriage. To me, it was a slow read with boring charecters, although as previously stated by others, the ending does suprise.
    • 5/5
      It's hard to say exactly what this book is about. Marriage? Middle age? Art? In any case, its complexities are what make it so compelling. I was immediately drawn into this story about two married artists, Gus and Owen, and the way that the arrival of a new neighbor disrupts the rhythm of the life that they have created. Black's writing is precise and lyrical--there is nothing on the page that is not absolutely essential to the story. The marriage that Black presents through the first person narrative, as well as the relationship of Gus to her father, are achingly real. I don't want to say more for fear of ruining the book for a reader, but I highly recommend this novel and this writer to anyone looking for an excellent novel. I'm always excited when I come across an author as talented as Robin Black. I can't wait to read more from her.Thanks to the Early Reviewer giveaway for the opportunity to read and review this.