Alice Knott
 First edition | |
| Author | Blake Butler |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Riverhead Books |
| Publication place | United States |
 Paperback and subsequent editions | |
| Author | Blake Butler |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Archway Editions |
| Publication place | United States |
Alice Knott is a 2020 novel by American author Blake Butler.[1] The novel concerns the theft and destruction of a painting collection and its impact on the painting's original owner, the titular Alice Knott.[2] In The Nation, Brooks Sterritt wrote that the book "...resonates so strongly with life under lockdown", though noting that the book was completed before the 2020 pandemic.[3]
In 2024 it will be released in paperback by Archway Editions as Void Corporation.[4]
Development and writing
[edit]Butler's earliest inspiration for the book was a note written to himself reading “Corporation that buys and destroys art”.[5] He was further inspired by the Thomas Pynchon novel The Crying of Lot 49.[5]
Reception
[edit]In The New York Times, Lauren Wilkinson wrote “There’s an exceptional amount of intention and control on display in the telling of this story. . . . Don’t expect a conventional reading experience. Alice Knott is a meditation on art and perception whose form seems to serve as both a meta-comment on the function of the novel, and a challenge to the expectations that a reader should bring to one. It’s rare for me to enjoy and value a book on those terms, but this one worked for me. And even more to the point, I respected it for insisting that I rise to its challenge.”[1]
In Los Angeles Review of Books, John Domini wrote that the "constant worrying at what’s genuinely personal, struggling to detach it from the endless play of light across wall and screen, strikes me as an undeniably contemporary project.”[2]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Wilkinson, Lauren (24 July 2020). "Bring Your Flamethrower. In This Novel, Art Feels the Burn". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
- ^ a b Domini, John (1 August 2020). "Undeniably Contemporary: On Blake Butler's "Alice Knott"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
- ^ Sterritt, Brooks (2 September 2020). "Is This the First Great Quarantine Novel?". The Nation. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
- ^ "Simon & Schuster".
- ^ a b Jones, Shane (6 July 2020). "An Interview with Blake Butler". Believer Magazine. The Believer. Retrieved 17 December 2020.
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