Modern Art

Belle Prokoff is the formidable widow of the tormented Clay Madden -- an alcoholic, Montana cowboy who blazed through the New York art world and revolutionized it. Blunt, fierce, and scornful of the world's hypocrisy, Belle, a painter herself, has passionately protected her husband's memory since his death in a car accident three decades earlier.

Full of vivid characters and intense confrontations, this highly charged tale moves towards its startling conclusion as Belle battles Madden's would-be biographer and changes forever the lives of the people in her orbit. Inspired by certain principal events in the lives of the artists Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, this beautifully written novel imagines dialogue, events, and characters in a fictional universe.