MY MOTHER AND THE ARTIST

Synan presents a novel about the murky, complicated life of a 1980s sexual submissive.

In the present day, Alexandra Lizska is the CEO of a corporation that provides shelter for abused women in the San Francisco Bay Area. She’s a skilled fundraiser, and she’s achieved success on her own without any support from friends or family and without a college degree. However, her world is upended when her estranged mother, Margaret, dies, leaving behind a lightly fictionalized memoir called Owned, which focuses on its main character’s relationship with a “big deal” real-life artist in New York named Bernard Barenbaum.As it turns out, Margaret was one of Bernard’s sexually submissive lovers in the ’80s; he even had her sign a “consensual contract.” During their time together, he carved a B onto her body with an X-Acto knife in a backyard ceremony. Bernard is the reason why Margaret and Alexandra (who’s called Amy in the fictionalized memoir) moved from Ohio to Brooklyn when Alexandra was a child. When Alexandra journeys to New York City as an adult to settle her late mother’s affairs, she begins reading the soon-to-be-published book. Her first impulse is to block its publication but, as it turns out, she has no legal power to do so. She continues reading and finds “every chapter a new shock,” and she finds out more details about Margaret and Bernard’s connection than she ever wanted to know. In addition, Alexandra finds out more about her own childhood in the story of “Amy.”

The novel captures the reader’s attention early with the very first mention of the term slave. As the details of Margaret’s voluntary servitude are revealed, it becomes apparent that she had few limits on what she was willing to do for Bernard—although she did have some, as in a scene in her book in which she was given the option to either go to a dungeon or participate in group sex. As Bernard tells her, “Both will happen eventually, but I’ll let you decide which you’d like next.” Such is his way of always explaining things, as if he has the right to command; the resulting tension between Bernard and Margaret enlivens the narrative. Somewhat less compelling is the story of the friendship that develops between Amy and Bernard’s adopted son, Daniel, the child of one of Bernard’s former lovers; he’s portrayed as a strange boy who takes pleasure in things such as keeping pet cockroaches. As he and Amy grow closer, he becomes determined to help her with a chronic kidney problem that’s plagued her all her life. This storyline makes for a pleasant contrast to the rest of the novel, but the structure of Synan’s work is such that there’s little suspense regarding the severity of Amy’s health problem—as, obviously, she grows up to become the successful Alexandra. The secrets revealed about Bernard, Margaret, and the bizarre ways of adults are of much greater interest throughout.

An often-engaging story of an unusual relationship and its effects on those around them.