Negative Space: A Memoir

A memoir from the editor of Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger, Negative Space explores Dancyger's own anger, grief, and artistic inheritance as she sets out to illuminate the darkness her father hid from her, as well as her own.

Despite her parents' struggles with addiction, Lilly Dancyger always thought of her childhood as a happy one. But what happens when a journalist interrogates her own rosy memories to reveal the instability around the edges?

Dancyger's father, Joe Schactman, was part of the iconic 1980s East Village art scene. He created provocative sculptures out of found materials like animal bones, human hair, and broken glass and brought his young daughter into his gritty, iconoclastic world. She idolized him-despite the escalating heroin addiction that sometimes overshadowed his creative passion. When Schactman died suddenly, just as Dancyger was entering adolescence, she went into her own self-destructive spiral, raging against a world that had taken her father away.

As an adult, Dancyger began to question the mythology she had created about her father-the brilliant artist, struck down in his prime. Using his sculptures, paintings, and prints as a guide, Dancyger sought out the characters from his world who could help her decode the language of her father's work to find the truth of who he really was.

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Negative Space: A Memoir

A memoir from the editor of Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger, Negative Space explores Dancyger's own anger, grief, and artistic inheritance as she sets out to illuminate the darkness her father hid from her, as well as her own.

Despite her parents' struggles with addiction, Lilly Dancyger always thought of her childhood as a happy one. But what happens when a journalist interrogates her own rosy memories to reveal the instability around the edges?

Dancyger's father, Joe Schactman, was part of the iconic 1980s East Village art scene. He created provocative sculptures out of found materials like animal bones, human hair, and broken glass and brought his young daughter into his gritty, iconoclastic world. She idolized him-despite the escalating heroin addiction that sometimes overshadowed his creative passion. When Schactman died suddenly, just as Dancyger was entering adolescence, she went into her own self-destructive spiral, raging against a world that had taken her father away.

As an adult, Dancyger began to question the mythology she had created about her father-the brilliant artist, struck down in his prime. Using his sculptures, paintings, and prints as a guide, Dancyger sought out the characters from his world who could help her decode the language of her father's work to find the truth of who he really was.

16.95 In Stock
Negative Space: A Memoir

Negative Space: A Memoir

by Lilly Dancyger

Narrated by Lilly Dancyger

Unabridged — 6 hours, 28 minutes

Negative Space: A Memoir

Negative Space: A Memoir

by Lilly Dancyger

Narrated by Lilly Dancyger

Unabridged — 6 hours, 28 minutes

Audiobook (Digital)

$16.95
(Not eligible for purchase using B&N Audiobooks Subscription credits)

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Overview

A memoir from the editor of Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger, Negative Space explores Dancyger's own anger, grief, and artistic inheritance as she sets out to illuminate the darkness her father hid from her, as well as her own.

Despite her parents' struggles with addiction, Lilly Dancyger always thought of her childhood as a happy one. But what happens when a journalist interrogates her own rosy memories to reveal the instability around the edges?

Dancyger's father, Joe Schactman, was part of the iconic 1980s East Village art scene. He created provocative sculptures out of found materials like animal bones, human hair, and broken glass and brought his young daughter into his gritty, iconoclastic world. She idolized him-despite the escalating heroin addiction that sometimes overshadowed his creative passion. When Schactman died suddenly, just as Dancyger was entering adolescence, she went into her own self-destructive spiral, raging against a world that had taken her father away.

As an adult, Dancyger began to question the mythology she had created about her father-the brilliant artist, struck down in his prime. Using his sculptures, paintings, and prints as a guide, Dancyger sought out the characters from his world who could help her decode the language of her father's work to find the truth of who he really was.


Editorial Reviews

author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls T Kira Madden

Candid, thrilling, wickedly smart, Negative Space is one of the greatest memoirs of this, or any, time.”

author of The Chronology of Water Lidia Yuknavitch

Negative Space is a beautiful restoration act.”

author of In the Dream House Carmen Maria Machado

A lovely and heartbreaking book.”

author of Fire in the Belly Cynthia Carr

An unflinching account of her artist father’s snake-bitten life and his struggles with addiction—peeling back the layers around an artistic practice that seems weighted with vulnerability.”

The Oprah Magazine O

Much like her father had, Dancyger crafts a striking composition out of found objects, a poignant portrait of the identities we construct out of grief.”

Refinery29

[A] fierce, intimate work.”

author of The Fact of a Body Alex Marzano-Lesnevich

This book is a true accomplishment, one that often left me stunned and disturbed in all the right ways, all the ways brilliant art does.”

Product Details

BN ID: 2940176296327
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date: 07/31/2021
Edition description: Unabridged
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