Contrapposto

A BBC RADIO 2 BOOKCLUB PICK

‘A book of profundity, humanity and ravishing beauty – the only kind of book I want to read’ – ANDREW SEAN GREER

‘Glorious and captivating, with Eggers’ signature humour and precision, Contrapposto tells a big and big-hearted story that counter-positions exquisitely the pain and exhilarations of love and the creative impulse. I loved this novel’ – LILY KING

‘This book speaks to my heart. With wit, wisdom, and deep empathy, Contrapposto asks all the hard questions that haunt and enliven a creative life – about art and beauty, about commerce and class, about the cost of passion and the price of success’ – RUTH OZEKI

Contrapposto is a wild and beautiful novel about two friends who believe they can change the world – if only they can start their own movement, dodge charlatans, remain open-eyed and open-hearted, avoid going mad, avoid dying young of rare cancers, stay true to their ideals and never tire of beauty. Not easy, but not impossible, either.

Twenty years in the making, Contrapposto is the magnificent new novel by the award-winning Dave Eggers – a story about art and life and the complicated beauty of both.

Cricket is just a shy kid who likes drawing when he first meets Olympia. She’s older, more confident; she bullies him into some light vandalism and instantly he’s in love. When they’re together, they talk about their futures, how they’re going to travel the world, the beauty and rapture of art.

Then those futures start to arrive in unexpected ways, the years and decades pile up between them, the art world seduces and disappoints and frustrates them. And they have to figure out, again and again, what it is to be an artist, and who and what to love.

‘I’ve seldom read a book so engaging as Contrapposto’
PHILIP PULLMAN

‘An earthy, warm return to form . . . A novel of ideas, exploring the meaning of art and the unfairness, pretensions and occasional skullduggery of the art world’
New York Times

‘A portrait of an artist as a young man . . . Eggers gives us, generously and precisely, clear and bright, a story about why we create, and how we love’
TOMMY ORANGE

‘Extraordinary . . . a lucid and passionate Künstlerroman and a drawing of the negative space around the contemporary art world’
LAUREN GROFF

Cricket is just a shy kid who likes drawing when he first meets Olympia. She’s older, more confident; she bullies him into some light vandalism and instantly he’s in love. When they’re together, they talk about their futures, how they’re going to travel the world, the beauty and rapture of art.

Then those futures start to arrive in unexpected ways, the years and decades pile up between them, the art world seduces and disappoints and frustrates them. And they have to figure out, again and again, what it is to be an artist, and who and what to love.

This is a wild and beautiful novel about two friends who believe they can change the world, if only they can start their own movement, dodge charlatans, remain open-eyed and open-hearted, avoid going mad, avoid dying young of rare cancers, stay true to their ideals and never tire of beauty. Not easy, but not impossible, either.

Cricket is just a shy kid who likes drawing when he first meets Olympia. She’s older, more confident; she bullies him into some light vandalism and instantly he’s in love. When they’re together, they talk about their futures, how they’re going to travel the world, the beauty and rapture of art.

Then those futures start to arrive in unexpected ways, the years and decades pile up between them, the art world seduces and disappoints and frustrates them. And they have to figure out, again and again, what it is to be an artist, and who and what to love.

This is a wild and beautiful novel about two friends who believe they can change the world, if only they can start their own movement, dodge charlatans, remain open-eyed and open-hearted, avoid going mad, avoid dying young of rare cancers, stay true to their ideals and never tire of beauty. Not easy, but not impossible, either.