Adam and Leonora

Adam Sinclair is a surrealist painter who lives in a vast artist’s compound in the Santa Cruz mountains. The artist Leonora Bloom, a researcher of dreams, isn’t sure why she is so drawn to this reclusive man she’s never met—yet she can’t shake her obsession with him. After years of hiking the ridge above Adam’s property, she finally knocks on his door.

Inside Adam’s house, enormous paintings of golden spirals, cosmic stars, and cobalt universes cover the walls, vibrating with energy and mystery—and though he is aloof, the chemistry between him and Leonora is immediate. Interwoven with Leonora’s tale are the voices of Adam’s muses: Pauline, a talented writer; and Mimi Saucier, a sultry singer from 1930s Paris. The two women play off characters of the Surrealist movement including André Breton, Remedios Varo, and Wolfgang Paalen, creating worlds of dreamy enchantment, as Leonora seeks to discover Adam’s secret to the creative pulse of life—a journey into the surreal. The heart of art’s divine mysteries lies with Adam somehow, but ultimately, if she is to truly unearth who she is and why she creates, Leonora must let go of her rational self and trust her intuition.

Author: Carol Jameson

Publication Date: June 11, 2024

Categories: Fiction, Spring 2024

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About the Author

Description

“Carol Jameson has a rare talent for delight. In reanimating past artists, poets, and lovers, she snares them in a Midsummer Night’s Dream of pure storytelling intoxication. Even her André Breton is halfway loveable!”
—Jonathan Lethem, New York Times best-selling author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude

“Jameson has written a wonderful novel, layered with romantic escapades and philosophical musings on Art and Life. She deftly handles different places and historical time periods from Paris on the cusp of war, to New York, Mexico, and Los Angeles. Adam is the archetypal male artist, a modern Don Quixote in search of the Ideal, while André Breton, as Sancho Panza, offers counsel that fluctuates between brilliance and buffoonery. The women—Pauline, Mimi, and Leonora—are visionary artists in their own right. Adam and Leonora is executed in a fluid literary style reminiscent of the great studies of human folly.”
—Summer Brenner, author of The Missing Lover

“I ‘watched’ this novel as if I were viewing a Bunuel film, delighted and surprised by the quick geographic and emotional twists, and by a take on romance (mad love!) that characterizes the best of surrealism.”
—Owen Hill, author of the Clay Blackburn novels

“An ambitious blend of fiction and art history, author Carol Jameson explores the powerful and often provocative role that dreams can play in everyday life. Fans of surrealism are sure to enjoy.”
—Victoria Lilienthal, author of the award-winning novel The T Room

About the Author

Carol Jameson is an educator, swimmer, and pianist. She created and coedited the online zine Hello Goodbye Apocalyse, a journal of pandemic writings and artwork, and is the author of The Kaiser Stories and It Builds in the Brain. Currently, she writes two blogs: Pool Purrs, a collection of swimming stories, and Walk with CJ, a collection of walking stories that began during the pandemic. She has an MFA in creative writing and literature from Mills College and teaches writing in San Francisco Bay Area colleges. She lives in Richmond, California, with her naughty orange tabby cat, Clara.