This classic, first published in 1974, is not so much a memoir as it is a fictional retelling of what John Gregory Dunne actually did do: separate from his wife, Joan Didion, and three-year-old daughter in Los Angeles and move to Las Vegas “in the summer of my nervous breakdown.” Haunted by premonitions of death and married to a brighter literary light, Dunne sought escape in a city where self-delusion and despondency flourish, and he ended up with enough material to create a fevered dream of a memoir. Didion hardly appears at all, and even then not by name, but in the brief exchange between husband and wife, one can detect a mutual shrewdness that if this were indeed a nervous breakdown, having it in Vegas would make for good copy. McNally Editions does its usual first-class job in its reissue of Vegas, complete with an excellent foreword by Stephanie Danler.
The fall of the Knoedler Gallery, once one of the premier art houses in Manhattan, which collapsed in 2011 amid allegations that it had sold more than three dozen fake paintings by the likes of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, became the subject of the terrific Netflix documentary Make You Look in 2020. The question has always been whether the gallery and its director, Ann Freedman, knew the paintings brought to her by Glafira Rosales and painted by a Chinese immigrant in Queens were indeed fakes and not, as Rosales claimed, from an anonymous collector hiding his gay affair with the benefactor that gave him these paintings, thus explaining the lack of paperwork that would have proved their provenance. (Yes, we know this sounds absurd, but hey, it’s the art world!) Barry Avrich, who made the documentary, revisits the subject with new interviews and fresh details in The Devil Wears Rothko, and the tale as told in his book is even more of a doozy than what the film revealed. The ideal beach read, especially if the beach is on the French Riviera or in the Hamptons. Heck, given where the fakes were painted, Rockaway Beach in Queens will do just as well.
To understand any country, it is sometimes best to read its fiction, and the author, Shuang Xuetao, who lives in Beijing, is especially adept at illuminating society and life in northern China. Translated by Jeremy Tiang, Shuang’s prose is sharp and funny, with dialogue that is often wryly straightforward. There are 11 short stories in this collection, and the title story, first published in Granta magazine, is about a self-described “fifth-rate actor” named Lu Dong who is hired to play a hit man. The film is never made, but his prep for the role cracks him open. These stories promise to do the same for the reader.
Jim Kelly is the Books Editor at AIR MAIl. He can be reached at jkelly@airmail.news
