From Publishers Weekly
In this second novel by Rower (Armed Response), the artistic and social excesses of the New York School painters Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning and Elaine de Kooning provide a welcome obsession for a painter in a midlife crisis. At the start of an East Hampton summer, the death of an old friend and fellow artist shocks the narrator and leads her to Green River Cemetery, where she comes upon the graves of many of the abstract expressionist painters, among them Lee Krasner and Elaine de Kooning. She begins to investigate the history of "the wives," convinced that there is a story there "about friendship and competition between women artists." As this interest stretches out over several years, it becomes more and more a way for the narrator to avoid her own failed career, her fears of aging and the disintegration of a 20-year relationship with her live-in boyfriend. The lesbianism with which she toyed as a girl resurfaces, and she embarks on a series of liaisons with younger women. Research on the book (entitled Lee and Elaine) takes up much of her time, but she is only interested in primary sources, the information she gathers is already well known and her surprise at the most mundane facts is improbable. Rower has nothing new to add about the relationship between Lee and Elaine save the fanciful supposition that they are ghosts "coming back as lesbians after all those years married to those macho art stars." The narrator, nameless throughout, remains a cipher. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Lee Krasner Pollock and Elaine de Kooning lived in the shadows of their more famous husbands, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Rower's narrator, however, fancies that, freed from the competitiveness of the art scene, they--that is, their ghosts --became friends and even lovers. The narrator has lived with the same man in a SoHo loft for 20 years and is restless. Ostensibly intent on finishing a book, she sublets a house for sale in that erstwhile haven of famous painters and poets, East Hampton. She doesn't write there as much as she entertains Iris, a student with whom she embarks on a kinky relationship, in which, for example, she is disclosed trussed up to a four-poster naked when the jolly realtor lets herself in with a couple of clients in tow. She also often visits the Green River Cemetery, in which Lee and Elaine are buried, seeking mystical guidance and freedom at a juncture in her life that leads inevitably to major change. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
What was life like for Elaine de Kooning and Lee Krasner. Both wonderful painters themselves, they remained in the shadows of their more famous husbands. In Baby, Lee and Elaine come back as ghosts, as lesbian lovers. An extraordinary portrait of the Abstract Expressionist crowd, the book is a moving reflection of what it meant to be a woman artist in an epoch when America became for the first time ever the center of the art world.


About the Author
Ann Rower, a former Wooster Group writer, is the author of If You're A Girl and Armed Response, (185242415X) also published by Serpent's Tail. Her work has appeared in High Risk 2, BOMB Magazine, Journal of Contemporary Fiction, and The World. She lives in New York City

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A woman takes a winter rental in East Hampton, near the famous artists' cemetery, Green River, and becomes obsessed with the graves and lives of women artists who are buried there. They're mostly the wives of more famous men, especially Elaine De Kooning and Lee Krasner, the wife of Jackson Pollock. She plans to write a book in which Lee and Elaine come back as ghosts, as lesbians and as lovers. When Elaine's stone is discovered to be missing one day, all hell breaks out in the narrator's real life. She's forced to start anew, alone, everything different.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In this second novel by Rower (Armed Response), the artistic and social excesses of the New York School painters Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning and Elaine de Kooning provide a welcome obsession for a painter in a midlife crisis. At the start of an East Hampton summer, the death of an old friend and fellow artist shocks the narrator and leads her to Green River Cemetery, where she comes upon the graves of many of the abstract expressionist painters, among them Lee Krasner and Elaine de Kooning. She begins to investigate the history of "the wives," convinced that there is a story there "about friendship and competition between women artists." As this interest stretches out over several years, it becomes more and more a way for the narrator to avoid her own failed career, her fears of aging and the disintegration of a 20-year relationship with her live-in boyfriend. The lesbianism with which she toyed as a girl resurfaces, and she embarks on a series of liaisons with younger women. Research on the book (entitled Lee and Elaine) takes up much of her time, but she is only interested in primary sources, the information she gathers is already well known and her surprise at the most mundane facts is improbable. Rower has nothing new to add about the relationship between Lee and Elaine save the fanciful supposition that they are ghosts "coming back as lesbians after all those years married to those macho art stars." The narrator, nameless throughout, remains a cipher. (Mar. 19) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews