The Art of Dying: Writings, 2019-2022

by Peter Schjeldahl, Steve Martin, Jarrett Earnest Narrated by T. Ryder Smith

Overview

When Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker's art critic and the leading art writer of his generation, published his eye-opening autobiographical essay, “The Art of Dying,” in December 2019, he reported that he had lung cancer and had been given six months of life. Fortunately, his treatment was showing some improvement, and so, he wrote, “These extra months are a luxury that I hope to have put to good use.”

And he did. The Art of Dying begins with that essay and collects all forty-six pieces that he subsequently published in the magazine before his death in October 2022.

These last works explore the meanings and purposes of art, not only in relation to the writer's own condition, but also under the stress of an intensely anxious period spanning the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests, the 2020 presidential election, and the war in Ukraine. Reviewing exhibitions and, occasionally, books, Schjeldahl probed the art world's answers to the questions-esthetic, moral, political-posed by these tempestuous three years, in writing inflected with generosity and openness.

Comedian and author Steve Martin contributes a foreword, and writer and curator Jarrett Earnest contributes an introduction.

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus (starred review)

A gorgeous memento mori from a singular writer.

The Washington Post Sebastian Smee

Peter Schjeldahl wrote things that made you put down the magazine or shut the laptop or slowly slip the phone back in your pocket. Things that were so good you needed to take a minute. He was the leading art critic of his generation … but he was better than that. You could adore art or not be especially interested in it. You could concur or passionately disagree. It didn’t matter: You would read Schjeldahl just to read sentences by him. … The pieces in his new posthumous collection, The Art of Dying, were all written … after Peter was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer in 2019. The doctors told him he had six months to live. But he undertook experimental treatment, and, miraculously, it worked. He lived three more years. The collection, then, is haloed by a quality of grace, almost of intercession. It is filled with terrific examples of Peter doing what he did best.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Brilliant … a testament to Schjeldahl’s unique ability to make tangible art’s emotional effects on the viewer … This posthumous collection will be a gift to Schjeldahl’s admirers and a revelation to those new to his work.

From the Publisher

Brilliant … a testament to Schjeldahl’s unique ability to make tangible art’s emotional effects on the viewer … This posthumous collection will be a gift to Schjeldahl’s admirers and a revelation to those new to his work.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A gorgeous memento mori from a singular writer.”—Kirkus (starred review)

“Peter Schjeldahl wrote things that made you put down the magazine or shut the laptop or slowly slip the phone back in your pocket. Things that were so good you needed to take a minute. He was the leading art critic of his generation … but he was better than that. You could adore art or not be especially interested in it. You could concur or passionately disagree. It didn’t matter: You would read Schjeldahl just to read sentences by him. … The pieces in his new posthumous collection, The Art of Dying, were all written … after Peter was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer in 2019. The doctors told him he had six months to live. But he undertook experimental treatment, and, miraculously, it worked. He lived three more years. The collection, then, is haloed by a quality of grace, almost of intercession. It is filled with terrific examples of Peter doing what he did best.”—Sebastian Smee, The Washington Post

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2024-03-20
Notes on dying from a man who did an excellent job of living.

Schjeldahl (1942-2022) was best known as an art critic, a role he held at the New Yorker right up until his death at the age of 80. He made the East Village his home for most of his life, but his roots were in the Midwest—a fact that perhaps explains why he was able to make art accessible without dumbing it down or pandering. The title essay was published after he was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer. The author writes about his life in a discursive style that he has, as an elderly man facing death, surely earned, but these vignettes hang together and offer a portrait of a life spent in search of beauty in an era largely defined by cynicism. Always a keen observer, Schjeldahl manages the neat trick of seeming to place himself outside the frame even when he serves as his own subject. For example, he recounts winning a Guggenheim grant to pen a memoir that never happened because he used that money to buy a tractor—rather than time to write. Relating this story, he quotes Susan Sontag, whom he recounts meeting in another anecdote that seems more self-effacing than it is. This author knows his place in cultural history, and he wants us to remember it; he just doesn’t want to brag about it. The rest of this volume includes Schjeldahl’s final pieces for the New Yorker, many written during the global pandemic, a time when the author was uniquely equipped to talk about how we might think about art in the face of death. In the foreword, Steve Martin notes, “It’s easy to think you can write like Peter, intrepidly flinging words around, but it’s dangerous.”

A gorgeous memento mori from a singular writer.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191539171
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	05/14/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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