AMAZON BREAKTHROUGH NOVEL AWARD QUARTERFINALIST
“Really takes off during a high and naked moment in a self-made steam hut in the woods.” -Publisher’s Weekly
An artist in search of herself, a narcissistic lover, and an unforgettable collection of other misfit characters are brought together in this portrait of the artist as a young woman, which inverts the trope of the male artist / female muse and where an unrequited love obsession sparks the creative muse. In The God of My Art, the artist is a young woman infatuated with an unavailable rock climbing international aid worker, and as the story unfolds, so does the nature of her hero worship.
FROM THE BACK COVER:
“Helene vividly remembers that night in Prince George when her alcoholic mother threatened to leave. She also cannot forget the day her stepfather sent her away to a group home. Now, years later in Vancouver, she has met a man who can make her forget all that.
The God of My Art is layered with unforgettable scenes of youth, obsessive love, and artistic longing. At the core of this haunting coming-of-age tale are the shifting faces of Helene—teenage runaway, university student, and budding artist. Related in Helene’s engaging voice, this novel chronicles her seminal love affair with Matthew, a globetrotting mountaineer passionate about Nietzsche, and the art he inspires within her. As she wrestles to become the artist she wants to be, she encounters unforgettable characters along the way, including Hana, a lesbian theatre student fed up with her partner’s multiple affairs, and Laurent, a French exchange student who grapples with existential questions of his own.
Bold and poetic, sensual and confessional, The God of My Art explores obsessive love as a source of inspiration for art, where the artist is female and the eternal muse, male.”
WHAT REVIEWERS ARE SAYING:
“Many authors succeed in capitalizing on vibrant cities to set their novels, but Sarah Lane’s beautiful and simple prose takes this a magical step further. The God of My Art is far more than a collage of Vancouver beaches, streets and towering mountains. The novel’s strength lies in the dichotomy of the “chosen” and “outliers”—the pampered heirs to Shaughnessy fortunes and the soon-to-disappear women of Hastings Street back alleys. Like art, Lane’s prose reveals its deepest secrets not in the rays of light, but in the shadows.” –New Perspectives on Canadian Literature
“The God of My Art is at its heart a charming read. There is something about it that envelops the reader, sitting them right next to the tortured Helene. . . . But be warned: Lane’s prose has a tendency to gently lure you into reading the book in one sitting.” –The Ubyssey
“The God of My Art is a beautiful book. The writing is precise, the sentences flow together, and the prose is poetic. I recommend it to everyone who loves authenticity in art and life.” –Manchester, Amazon Top 1000 Reviewer
Targeted Age Group:: Adult
How is Writing In Your Genre Different from Others?
I write contemporary women’s literary fiction, which encompasses many different styles and approaches to writing. For me, the main difference between literary and genre fiction is that literary tends to be more about the quality of the writing and ideas and genre fiction more about the plot and the ability to entertain. The best fiction, whether literary or genre, excels in all of the above.
What Advice Would You Give Aspiring Writers?
Don’t be afraid to play around, be specific rather than vague and concrete rather than abstract, and avoid adverbs in any shape or form. Try to look at writing from the sentence level up to the story, rather than always the other way around. There are many ways to say the same thing. The poetics of writing are as important as the meaning the words convey.
Author Bio:
Sarah Lane’s first novel The God of My Art was a quarterfinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Her short stories and poetry have been featured in various literary publications, including The Antigonish Review, Roar Magazine, and Quills: Canadian Poetry Magazine. She holds a B.A. in international relations and a M.A. in comparative literature from the University of British Columbia.
Transplanted as a child from California to Canada, Sarah grew up in rural British Columbia. As an adult, wanderlust has led her to live in France and to travel extensively in Cameroon (Central Africa), Mexico, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Scotland, and the USA. Mom to two young children of mixed heritage, speaker of accented French, and all around xenophile, she currently lives in Vancouver, Canada, where she is working on her next novel.
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?One of my favorite themes is the question of fate or freedom. To what extent are we free to choose our lives? I was living in France when I wrote The God of My Art, where social class structures are quite rigid and obvious. It made me think about the subtle, hidden social classes of my own culture, which pretends to be classless, and I wanted to highlight how being born into, for example, the “welfare” class can have repercussions that follow a woman into adulthood.
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