Stone Arabia

Stone Arabia, Dana Spiottas moving and intrepid third novel, is about family, obsession, memory, and the urge to createin isolation, at the margins of our winner-take-all culture. In the sibling relationship, there are no first impressions, no seductions, no getting to know each other, says Denise Kranis. For her and her brother, Nik, now in their forties, no relationship is more significant. They grew up in Los Angeles in the late seventies and early eighties. Nik was always the artist, always wrote music, always had a band. Now he makes his art in private, obsessively documenting the work, but never testing it in the world. Denise remains Niks most passionate and acute audience, sometimes his only audience. She is also her familys first defense against the worlds fragility. Friends die, their mothers memory and mind unravel, and the news of global catastrophe and individual tragedy haunts Denise. When her daughter, Ada, decides to make a film about Nik, everyones vulnerabilities seem to escalate. Dana Spiotta has established herself as a singularly powerful and provocative writer (The Boston Globe) whose work is fiercely original. Stone Arabiariveting, unnerving, and strangely beautifulreexamines what it means to be an artist and redefines the ties that bind.