Madison attorney and UW-Madison Law School grad Susan Gloss’s sophomore novel was forged in conditions that her characters are fortunate enough to avoid.
The Curiosities is set in Madison, and centers on Nell Parker, a woman in her mid-30s with a doctorate in art history whose attempts at childbearing have dead-ended following a devastating miscarriage. Seeking a distraction and income to pay off the in vitro fertilization (IVF) debt she’s hiding from her law professor husband, the protagonist stumbles into a position overseeing an artists’ colony on Mansion Hill. The colony was the result of a bequest from a patron of the arts who wanted to give artists time and space to create.
Gloss, like many artists, did not have that luxury.
“Art is something that people kind of have to squeeze into the margins of their lives,” Gloss says. “That is true of almost all artists that I know: visual artists and musicians, writers.” She works part time for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.
The gap between Gloss’s latest release, out Feb. 5 on HarperCollins imprint William Morrow, and 2014’s Vintage, set in a Madison clothing store, coincided with the birth of her two sons, now ages 4 and 7.
“At the time, I thought I could write the second book pretty quickly,” Gloss says. “Well, not so much.” But she does feel fortunate to have a desk job that doesn’t stray too far from her artistic path. Legal writing accesses her analytical faculties, while creative writing exercises her imaginative side, she says.
In The Curiosities, three different artists work through personal issues as they generate work at the artists’ colony. A flighty, millennial art student, a self-trained, rural metal sculptor in mourning, and an elder feminist artist finally connect when a tragedy in the house brings them together.
The Curiosities offers windows into characters’ past lives, including the deceased patron, a character who appeared in Vintage. Works of art, many of them fictional, head the chapters, offering foreshadowing revealing characters’ personalities. They also reflect Gloss’s art interests, nurtured during frequent childhood trips with her mother and siblings from her home town of Green Bay to the Art Institute of Chicago. One imagined piece is by Wisconsin native Georgia O’Keeffe. Another is by Edwin Bashfield, who painted the dome of the Wisconsin State Capitol. There are also references to scrap-metal sculptures by Baraboo-area artist Dr. Evermor.
Gloss will read from The Curiosities as part of the Wisconsin Book Festival on Feb. 12 at Central Library, 7 p.m.
