An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

8/10 Dropps

Hardcover, 292 pages
Published November 23rd 2010 by Grand Central Publishing (first published November 2010)

It seems like some people are just blessed with artistic and creative abilities, flowing fourth in all forms, whether that be music, film, or literature, some just have something that most people lack. Steve Martin is one of those people.

An Object Of Beauty, Steve Martin’s newest literary offering, tells the story of Lacey Yeager, a beautiful, young art school grad attempting to make her way in the Big Apple. The novel follows Lacey as she climbs the social ladder in, with out a doubt, the most art crazy city in the world, as well as her love life, her shady dealings, and eventual outing from the art world she adores so dearly.

For those un-aware of Martin’s literary past, An Object Of Beauty, is not his first written work, along with many screenplays, and short stories, An Object Of Beauty, lands as Martin’s second novel, arguably third if you take his first novella, Shopgirl, into account as well. His prose are, as he has shown with his past works, well thought out, striking, and on par with many of today’s modern writers.

An Object of Beauty finds Martin writing (again) from a woman’s point of view, something he does surprisingly well, creating a character, Lacey, who is both beautiful on the page, and true to a woman of her age’s tongue. While the novel is written as a story from a male third party, Martin remains, for the most part, in the character of Lacey, and the result is fresh and feels natural at the books conclusion.

Martin does two things exponentially well in An Object; he, being an avid collector himself, writes about art extremely well, creating a vivid image on the page (22 times through out the novel, Martin actually produces small samples of the art in question, helpful and creative touch). The other thing Martin appears to do with ease is write about New York City. Okay, this has been done to death, that’s clear, but Martin, being a LA man, creates a New York that would be familiar to those living in its boroughs as well as those who have never visited.

An Object Of Beauty is yet another strong piece created by Martin, well paced, overall interesting and entertaining. A minor fault may occur as Lacey, are “hero,” switches up on us and become more of an anti-hero by the end of the book. There are also several chapters that slip away from the story at hand and become more about the “storyteller” than Lacey, and while they tie back into the over all story, at times they fill like filler. Overall, An Abject Of Beauty is a solid novel, perhaps Martin’s best, and will entice those who are fans of his work (though this is not a comedy in any sense), and avid art enthusiast.

-Hunter Freiburg