Stone Arabia, Paperback/Dana Spiotta

From a National Book Award nominee, "a smart, subtle, moving story about the complicated business of knowing the people you love" ( Book Forum ). In the sibling relationship, "there are no first impressions, no seductions, no getting to know each other," says Denise Kranis. For Denise and her brother, Nik, now in their forties, no relationship is more significant. They grew up in Los Angeles in the late seventies and early eighties. Nik was always the artist, always wrote music, always had a band. Now he makes his art in private, obsessively documenting the work but never testing it in the world. Denise remains Nik's most passionate and acute audience; she is also the crucial support for Nik and for their aging mother, whose dementia seems to threaten her own memory. When Denise's daughter, Ada, decides to make a film about Nik, everyone's vulnerabilities escalate. In Stone Arabia , Dana Spiotta "explores the inner workings of celebrity, family, and other modern-day mythologies" ( Vogue ) . About author(s): Dana Spiotta is the author of Innocents and Others ; Stone Arabia , A National Books Critics Circle Award finalist; and Eat the Document , a finalist for the National Book Award. Spiotta is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rome Prize for Literature. Her most recent novel is Wayward . She lives in Syracuse, New York.