When Sons of Heaven Meet the Daughters of the Earth

by Fernanda Eberstadt

Dolly Gebler, midwestern heiress, is dedicated to the idea that art can change the world. Alfred, her husband, a poor boy from Brooklyn, loves nightclubs and tequila, and believes he has married a woman for whom everything is appearances. Into this world comes Isaac Hooker.

Genres: Fiction

Hardcover

First published March 4, 1997

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't really know how to rate this, but I do want to talk about it (and by about it I mean mostly about myself).

I picked this book up when I was 17 (against formidable odds, apparently, judging by the tiny number of reads it has here) and for a while I would have considered it a favorite novel, I definitely reread it a few times back then. I can't imagine what I saw in it; it's such an adult book. Not in the sex/drugs/rock/roll sense but in the sense that it's all about money and politics and decades-long marriages. That's probably exactly why I liked it; it was 2001 or so and John Green hadn't arrived yet with books full of fellow 17-year-olds having deliciously intellectual conversations, so I had to make do to get my fix of books that made me feel highbrow.

Before rereading it this time I remembered the following things that I loved, which all held up:
- totally lush, gorgeous prose, especially about how New York looked and felt
- these extremely real-feeling, sensual depictions of the labor and craft of art, of the physical sense of mixing paint and applying it to a canvas
- gossipy, name droppy (were the names real or fictional? A little of each but most of them had me scratching my head like should I recognize that one) party scenes full of charming asshole types

And at the time I'm pretty sure I found "charming" to be the operative word in "charming asshole," which is no longer the case. And since then I've read so, SO much literary fiction about New York, rich people, rich New Yorkers, marital misery, extramarital sex, miserable affairs, people shouting grand intellectual pronouncements at each other across the dinner table, ironic misogyny and racism (from one of those charming asshole types), rich New Yorkers trying and failing to understand their poor neighbors, old guys trying to stay young via sex and booze, old guys' internal monologues about the female characters' bodies... and I'm just out of patience for all of it. Just rereading the jacket copy was like...ooh, 1980s art world? Oh, it's going to be all about this unhappily married rich couple, isn't it, never mind...

This book is very beautifully and smartly written and full of incisive detail and I'm glad I read it at one point in my life but a lot of it was sort of exasperating now.

[Caitlin Gladstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the big city its set in, its unashamedly grandiose, gleefully glamourous, unflinchingly dirty, depraved and disgustingly human. New York City in the 1980's must have been a wild ride, and this book does well enough to bring that to the table. It feels like a movie at times; highly visual, meticulous details of colours and atmosphere of a scene. The language hasnt aged, excpet for a couple of slurs', but nothing too gross.
A book that doesn't really end, so much as the reader is simply yanked away from the story; voyeuristic privilege revoked. Sons Of Heaven/Daughters Of Earth is colourful and often times kaleidoscopic and frantic in its description of scenes, characters and events. Narration is third person, dipping into the mind of any one character or another for a moment or so, although most of the novel is centered around Isaac hooker, a young troubled country boy turned prolific artist overnight.
Most of the dialogue in this novel is used to facilitate conversations of many contentious topics, ranging from social issues, modern urban Americas loss of religion, wealth disparity, white privilege, "career" artists, the value of modern/post modern/post classic art, even touching on what makes an artist a real artist. Most of these individual discussions within the novel are brief as there are just so many points that the author wanted to stress, and most of them are relevant as they all seem to ultimately affect Isaac in some way or another.

The book was fun enough, characters interesting and quirky in their own way, story itself compelling enough. This would be a great read for those familiar with modern and classic art, the art world, and New York City in general, or even just those that want a peek into the world of filth and glitz and money and high art and high society.

Good read but probably wouldn't read again, though in saying that there are some excellent and thought provoking quotes and ideas sprinkled throughout the entire book that would be very much worth revisiting.

[Mary Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another beautiful book by Fernanda Eberstadt. After reading the Furies, I checked this out even though its plot isn't something I'd normally be interested in -- a love story set in the debaucherous high-class art world of 1980s Manhattan. I felt like I'd fallen into that world, though, and into the emotions of the main character, Dolly, a fortysomething art patron who has taken on a young protege, Isaac Hooker. Isaac uses religious, almost outsider art themes and struggles with the authenticity of the life he lives now (as an up-and-coming art world star) as compared to his modest upbringing in rural New Hampshire and his early homeless days in NYC - the inspiration for and genesis of his paintings. Dolly falls slowly in love with Isaac (maybe too slowly for some readers! - there's no "action" in that vein until the final quarter of the book) meanwhile trying to keep it together at home with her blatantly unfaithful tomcat of a husband and their three teenage children. Smashing setting, populated with lots of gloriously over-the-top artsy characters. The storyline is graceful and I found it intriguing, with a bit of an unresolved ending, though I believe that Isaac Hooker is a recurring character in Eberstadt's books, so will have to look into those next.

[Bryn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am interested in books about art and artists, and I am interested in the setting, which I think Eberstadt does very well; her pages are filled with little telling details of clothes and food and buildings and so forth, all concrete and clear and fascinating to me. But I am not interested in her characters, not the rich white man and his sexual thoughts and visits to strip clubs, not the poor white man and his naif confusions about human interaction. There may have been characters farther on I would have loved, but I did not encounter them in what I read, and it was such a chore to make myself keep going despite all the delicious setting details -- there is something so impenetrable about the prose, a little too precious in the descriptions, and she just seems so pleased with these rather obnoxious people she is choosing to focus on. So -- perhaps another Eberstadt novel would be more for me, but this one, no. (10/2018)

[James Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I so wanted to love this book for its title alone. It is disappointingly set in a vacuous art-world from hell, in 80s NYC, with cardboard characters who scream unlikely philosophical conversations at each other of their sauvignon. It has some terrific writing, especially in its descriptions of New York, but otherwise is a soulless yawn of an experience. There are hardly any characters that are relatable or even interesting.

[Adriana Diaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd like to read other novels by this author. Reading her work challenges me to be a better writer.
I don't think the story line in this book attains the quality of her writing abilities. But her writing makes the story constantly entertaining.
I'd recommend it to anyone who is in the arts, who works for a foundation, or any non-profit. It's also a lovely way to visit New York.

[Norma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book no one has ever heard of but me. :P

It's the story of a starving artist in NY, who basically gets "discovered" by a rich woman with nothing better to do than sleep with starving artists. That's a terrible description, I know, but I enjoyed it and read it several times.

[Nick Szegda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chanced across this and I quite liked it. She has an interesting voice and interesting characters. Noy great, but good.

[Vincent · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fictional account of the NY art world and how an unlikely artist becomes a star. You can guess some of the people and institutions involved.

[Susan Andres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only about halfway through this book, but the deeper I sink into it, the more I'm ravished by Eberstadt's brilliant prose.

So much truth in this book, it's exhilarating & heartbreaking.