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Published Sep 2015
280 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Greenwich Village, 1959. Claire Bishop sits for a portrait - a gift from her husband - only to discover that what the artist has actually depicted is Claire's suicide. Haunted by the painting, Claire is forced to redefine herself within a failing marriage and a family history of madness. Shifting ahead to 2004, we meet West, a young man with schizophrenia obsessed with a painting he encounters in a gallery: a mysterious image of a woman's suicide. Convinced it was painted by his ex-girlfriend, West constructs an elaborate delusion involving time-travel, Hasidism, art-theft, and the terrifying power of representation. When the two characters finally meet, in the present, delusions are shattered and lives are forever changed.
The Suicide of Claire Bishop is a dazzling debut, evocative of Michael Cunningham's The Hours (and Virginia Woolf's classic Mrs. Dalloway), as well as Donna Tartt's bestseller The Goldfinch. With high stakes that reach across American history, Carmiel Banasky effortlessly juggles balls of madness, art theft, and Time itself, holding the reader in a thrall of language and personal consequences. Daring, sexy, emotional, The Suicide of Claire Bishop heralds Banasky as an important new talent.
"Starred Review. A memorable, intricate, and inventive debut...both an intellectual tour de force and a moving reflection on the ways we try to save ourselves and others." - Publishers Weekly
"Come for the author's gift with language, but don't expect it to offer you peace of mind." - Kirkus
"Daring, precise, and linguistically acrobatic, this novel brings a history of America alive, from the war protests in the sixties to turn-of-the 21st-century art theft. A fearless portrayal of madness and its consequences ... This is a new writer to savor, reminiscent of Nicole Krauss, Michael Chabon and Andy Sean Greer." - Colum McCann, National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin
"Vivid, strange and always compelling, The Suicide of Claire Bishop weaves together art, politics and the specter of madness in an unforgettable New York story. Carmiel Banasky, a writer like no other, is a talent to watch." - Claire Messud, author of The Emperor's Children and The Woman Upstairs
"A magnificent, astute debut that portends greatness, The Suicide of Claire Bishop whisks us through one of the most epic eras of American history ... A fantastically captivating and beautifully rendered book!" - Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn and Gold Fame Citrus
This information about The Suicide of Claire Bishop was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Carmiel Banasky is a writer and teacher from Portland, OR. Her work has appeared in Glimmer Train, American Short Fiction, Slice, Guernica, PEN America, The Rumpus, and NPR, among other places. She earned her M.F.A. from Hunter College, where she taught Undergraduate Creative Writing. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from Bread Loaf, Ucross, Ragdale, Artist Trust, I-Park, and others foundations.
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