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  <title><![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]></title>
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  <description><![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]></description>
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    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
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  <date_updated>Wed Nov 14 06:37:39 -0800 2007</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[This is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9095477]]></url>
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      <review>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
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    <rating>5</rating>
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  <date_added>Mon Jun 02 21:38:35 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Jun 02 21:53:08 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[In this book, Mary Gordon deals directly with two modern dilemmas - between guilt over having wealth and wanting to enjoy it; and between wanting equality between men and women in our intimate relationships but also wanting to celebrate and express difference.<br/><br/>So many novels depict men an...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23576791">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23576791]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
  <id>34838379</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Angie]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>2</rating>
  <votes>1</votes>
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  <date_added>Wed Oct 08 14:12:21 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Oct 13 10:38:04 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Smutty!  Intelligent, original and interesting, though.  However, it's very long -- there are no chapter breaks and the text is packed-in tightly.  I was very engaged for the first 100 pages or so and then started to lose interest.  It got repetitive and predictable.  I guess, it was just too narrow...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/34838379">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/34838379]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
  <id>37555482</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Paula]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Hockessin, DE]]></location>
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    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
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    <rating>4</rating>
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  <read_at>Sun Nov 23 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Nov 12 15:41:13 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Nov 23 20:52:14 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count>1</read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I liked this book. I didn't love it when I was finished with it (for reasons I'll get to), but it was more thoughtful than I expected it to be.<br/><br/>Basically, a female artist (Monica) is approached by a wealthy man who proposes to be her &quot;muse&quot; (although patron is more like it) so t...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/37555482">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">45</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.59</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

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  <read_at>Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
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  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[The story is pure fantasy.  An artist is suddenly given the opportunity to create her work freed from the bonds of money and timeby a wealthy patron who ends up being her lover and model.  He supports her latest, scandalous artistic vision of re-creating classical images of the deposed Christ as pos...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/69382675">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/69382675]]></url>
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      <review>
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    <name><![CDATA[Thurston]]></name>
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  <isbn13>9780684839455</isbn13>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Spending: A Utopian Divertimento]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.57</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>7</ratings_count>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

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  <read_at>Sat Jun 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Jun 02 23:42:41 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Jul 21 00:17:10 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Currently reading this for book club and, um, concerned. This whole Fairy Godfucker introduction, with Ayn Rand assertiveness....hmmmm. I hope I'm being set up for something else...<br/><br/>Well that was after the first 50 pages or so...but then I continued through the book on behalf of my book c...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/58260528">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
  <id>11116886</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Mairead]]></name>
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  <isbn>0684852047</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780684852041</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">45</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.59</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
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  <read_at>Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2002</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Dec 27 18:05:15 -0800 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 27 18:19:57 -0800 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[While others panned this book, I treasured the time spent reading and discussing Spending. During that phase of my life I was bogged down in critical theory and other academic writings. This book presented a bit of theory with a lot of sexy fluff. A brain in a boa. <br/><br/>Monica, a 50 year old ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11116886">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11116886]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
  <id>63530683</id>
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    <id>1115550</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Bonnie]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.59</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
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  <read_at>Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Jul 14 19:57:15 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Jul 14 20:14:58 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I really enjoy Mary Gordon's writing.  It's a fantasy for sure but very enjoyable to read. It's also about art and the process, which I found interesting. The story evolves beyond the initial fantasy of a rich benefactor providing everything which provides for the reader a very good story.   Money c...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/63530683">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/63530683]]></url>
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      <review>
  <id>49856372</id>
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    <id>2136557</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Carrie]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
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  <date_added>Fri Mar 20 07:02:27 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Fri Mar 20 07:06:56 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I love this book. Beautiful lyrical writing, very fascinating, sexy look at a few radical years in a 50-something artist's life. I read some reviews saying that this book is sacrilegious and offensive because of the way the artist interprets religious pictures. I hadn't considered that before (since...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/49856372">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/49856372]]></url>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Spending: A Utopian Divertimento]]>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Wed Apr 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Apr 12 05:39:57 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Apr 15 07:22:00 -0700 2009</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[My first exposure to Mary Gordon was a short story in an O. Henry Collection and I was blown away.  Since then, I have read a lot of her work and have never had the same experience.  When I began this novel, I was immediately pleased.  Although the quality of her writing never wavers, I was sick of ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/52373123">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/52373123]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/52373123]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>62711610</id>
    <user>
    <id>289665</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Noelle]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Austin, TX]]></location>
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  <isbn>0684852047</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780684852041</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">45</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.59</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Sun Jul 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Jul 08 19:43:54 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Jul 08 19:46:13 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I loved this book!  As my friend Brienne says, it's &quot;bawdy&quot;.  It's about a 50 year old, divorce, female artist who finds herself with a wealthy patron/muse/lover.  The characters were interesting to me and I enjoyed the development of their relationship.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/62711610]]></url>
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      <review>
  <id>43444854</id>
    <user>
    <id>346089</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Adrienne]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Brooklyn, NY]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.59</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1999</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Jan 18 06:27:20 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Jan 18 06:37:20 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I remember buying this book at the corner bookstore and reading it from cover to cover. Female artist using the male as muse, and the the theme of her work...loved it. Will appeal especially to those who have an art/art history background.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/43444854]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/43444854]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>50350529</id>
    <user>
    <id>1764810</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Anne]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Cedar Grove, NJ]]></location>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">45</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.59</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Thu Mar 05 00:00:00 -0800 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Mar 24 18:25:47 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Mar 24 18:27:06 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This book was terrific. Very sexy and just all around good. Well developed characters and really well researched on the part of the author. The level of familiarity with the art world was really impressive. ]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/50350529]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/50350529]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>78754247</id>
    <user>
    <id>2010698</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Wanda]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Calgary, AB, Canada]]></location>
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  <isbn>0684852047</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780684852041</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">45</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.59</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

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  <read_at>Sun Sep 03 00:00:00 -0700 2006</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon Nov 23 11:09:00 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Nov 23 11:10:29 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Great concept ... I fantasize about someone offering to be a muse for my writing such as the artist in this book. She is given the opportunity of a lifetime and what transpires is very interesting.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78754247]]></url>
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    <name><![CDATA[Karla]]></name>
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    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
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  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Sep 29 12:49:22 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Sep 29 12:50:33 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[One of my favorite books of all time. I'm fascinated by the subject matter - a female artist who gets romantically involved with her male patron - and Gordon knows how to rub a few words together.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72913315]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72913315]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>55845529</id>
    <user>
    <id>1430445</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Ellin]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Poughkeepsie, NY]]></location>
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  <isbn>0684852047</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780684852041</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">45</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.59</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1999</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue May 12 15:07:57 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue May 12 15:09:26 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I read this book about ten years ago and I remember liking it. I have a feeling I'd like it more now that I'm ten years older.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55845529]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55845529]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>55741555</id>
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    <id>1994081</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Shari]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[The United States]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.59</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
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  <read_at>Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon May 11 19:23:13 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon May 11 19:28:53 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[interesting given the phase i was in when i bought it. good gig on art and very sensual...and intellectual at the same time...]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55741555]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55741555]]></link>
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      <review>
  <id>43209596</id>
    <user>
    <id>1917747</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Kristin]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[The United States]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1917747-kristin]]></link>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.59</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
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  <read_at>Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1999</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Jan 15 21:50:56 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Jan 15 21:51:59 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Genius, genius, genius.  Art and writing, acts of creation.  Man.  Mary Gordon.  Hotness.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/43209596]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/43209596]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>45665183</id>
    <user>
    <id>1868613</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Tonia]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Vancouver, BC, Canada]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
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  <average_rating>3.59</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2000</read_at>
  <date_added>Sat Feb 07 13:08:42 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Feb 07 13:08:42 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[LOVED this story, the central characters are the works of art, it's wonderful.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/45665183]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/45665183]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[SPENDING: A Novel]]>
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  <ratings_count>238</ratings_count>
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    <![CDATA[Monica Szabo has, if not everything, rather more than many divorced women in their early 50s can claim. A New York artist with enough talent, success, and money to live on, she also has two interesting college-age daughters and an intellectually distinguished, morally heroic, and infinitely flexible male companion, Mikey. The only problem is, Mikey is a dog. Entrancing a gallery crowd in Provincetown, Monica conducts a whimsical outreach for her mutt's human counterpart. Male artists have long had their muses, she poses, but female artists have no such equivalent. &quot;Where, I ask you, lovers of the arts, where are the male Muses?&quot; Much to her surprise, a looker of the right age and sexual predilections offers himself up to her in front of her adoring audience. And this paragon of patronage not only lives up to her large-scale demands--advancing when she calls, retreating on command, taking her to places she's never been (in both senses of the phrase)--but he's really rich to boot. <p> Yet <em>Spending</em> proves more than a Harlequin romance for the intelligentsia.  Gordon gives her heroine a strong, self-amused voice and a fine mind, and B (as the lover is called throughout) gives her the space, time, money, sex, croissants, and property she needs to prosper. Did I mention that B also becomes the model for Monica's newest body of work? &quot;I sat in front of him, drawing with a kind of fever. He never woke up. I knew what I wanted to do: a series of paintings of postorgasmic men based on the great Italian Renaissance portraits of dead Christs. I even knew what I'd call the series: SPENT MEN, AFTER THE MASTERS.&quot; <p> Monica worries incessantly about her new spot of luck--engaging, for example, in a supersophisticated conversation with one daughter about whether or not B is turning her into a whore. &quot;If you call yourself a sex worker,&quot; Rachel poses, &quot;you don't have to get freaked out.&quot; Needless to say, this isn't much of a consolation. Though it advertises itself as highbrow erotica, <em>Spending</em> is at its best in scenes between females, and in those in which we see art through Monica's eyes. A Piero della Francesca is one of her favorites &quot;because of the egg hanging over the virgin's head ... I envied painters who operated out of a symbolic universe because it gave them an excuse to put in such wonderful, yet nutty objects: who would think of hanging an egg from a ceiling when you're painting something high class and serious like a heavenly court? But say it's a symbol of the Resurrection, and you get the fun of painting the shape and the texture, and you get narrative to boot.&quot; B, it turns out, is <em>Spending</em>'s problem--he's far too perfect, even after he loses $4 million. (Reader, don't get too worried. There's easy money waiting in the wings.) In her acknowledgments, Gordon admits that the commodities market was an unknown entity to her, and when B is onstage it's important to keep the subtitle, <em>A Utopian Divertimento,</em> in mind.</p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>1998</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Jan 03 21:58:54 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Jan 03 22:08:06 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This is a really different book - and a great read.  It is about a female artist in her 50s.  it demonstrates great  relationships (both family and sexual) and troubled relationships (like between art and money).   I would have said that this book is better for those of us closer to 50 except that L...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11602362">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11602362]]></url>
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