February 26, 2024
A woman adrift is visited by the spirit of a reclusive dancer in this enchanting debut novel from Polek (after the collection Imaginary Museums). Gia, fresh from a breakup and on leave from her job at a college film department, writes a letter to the late Marta Becket after stumbling upon photos of her in a library archive. In response, Marta, who painted and performed mostly in solitude in an abandoned opera house, mysteriously appears at Gia’s house. Together, the two attend a ballet, visit the estate of a local painter, and watch The Red Shoes. After Marta paints herself into a mural in Gia’s garage, she disappears, and Gia moves on to a stint tending to a former professor’s cottage. Strange things occur on the grounds: Gia encounters a dead deer in the pond, and, while walking in a field, she feels crushed by a large, shapeless darkness. Later, while visiting Marta’s opera house in Amargosa, Calif., Gia has a profound spiritual experience during a drive through Death Valley and feels “God’s touch.” Polek writes with an enjoyably strange spareness and the descriptions are often pleasantly odd: “Marta made me spaghetti for lunch. I curtsied before she sat down. She didn’t notice.” Readers will be eager to see where Polek goes next. Agent: Alex Reubert, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc.
September 13, 2024
Polek's (Imaginary Museums: Stories) trip through an existential crisis pulls listeners in from the beginning. The story begins as film studies professor Gia, spiritually untethered after a breakup, tries to find her center. Amid her depression, she comes across the story of Marta Becket, a professional ballet dancer who, in 1967, came across an abandoned opera house in Death Valley on the way to a performance. She rented the opera house, fixed it up, and painted an audience onto the seats. She spent the next 50 years performing for tourists or sometimes just for the audience she had painted. Gia writes a letter to Marta, after which Marta mysteriously appears at Gia's house, igniting a transformative journey of healing and self-discovery. Alex Picard speaks Gia's words with clarity and precision, channeling her sense of disembodiment as she goes through the motions, eventually traveling to Marta's Amargosa Opera House. Picard's narration, alternating between breathy and uncertain and assertive, captures a woman in flux and invites readers to wonder about the purpose of life and art. VERDICT This short vignette warms the soul and sifts out what's important.--Laura Trombley
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