Ida Perkins is “the American poet” of the 21st century. She is the eponymous muse of this book, and subject of obsession for protagonist, Paul Dukach, his boss, Homer (of “tiny, impecunious independent publishing house Purcell & Stern”), and Homer’s rival, Sterling (publisher, cousin and former lover of Ida).
Muse is a roman à clef of the microcosmic world of publishing. The fictional Ida and her work are slipped effortlessly into the 21st-century literary canon; figures such as Eliot, Pound, Plath, Sontag and Woolf are glimpsed and quoted throughout.
Jonathan Galassi, himself president and publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, writes with the fluency and authority of someone who has lived within the circles and scenes he typifies. Muse is quintessentially stylish, as well as a poetic contemplation on the mythologising of authors, the symbiotic relationship between writers and their work, and the impact of fame on life.
Muse is published by Jonathan Cape (£14.99). Click here to buy it for £11.99
