What does a real-life backstory matter in a fictional context? In an interview published by The Creative Independent earlier this year, Emmalea Russo discussed her novel Vivienne with Brittany Menjivar. Menjivar’s first question was about how Vivienne’s (fictional) title character was, in the novel’s universe, married to the real-world artist Hans Bellmer. Russo also noted the influence of the late writer Unica Zurn on the novel.
That’s a lot of extratextual weight to put on one novel. Bolstering this was the publisher’s initial press announcement, which suggested that Russo’s experiences having a book “canceled for her association with Compact Magazine” had informed this novel. Venturing into Vivienne, then, had me wondering if I was about to read something at best transgressive and at worst (sigh) anti-woke.
Thankfully, that wasn’t what I experienced here. Instead, Russo tells the story of an aging artist’s return to the spotlight and the effect it has on her family; told in a series of fragmentary chapters, it’s an often evocative novel of ideas and communal dynamics.
Vivienne also showcases Russo’s range in prose. Some of the chapters consist of interactions on social media, with pared-down language and very familiar rhythms to readers who have witnessed the blend of righteous anger and irreverence that can crop up when the internet turns angry. But Russo is equally at home heading in a more pastoral direction, as when describing the home in which Velour Bellmer, the title character’s daughter, lives:
Velour’s home sits alone and its insides are larger and more elaborate than you’d think: labyrinthine and sticky, lined with surreal wallpaper that Velour made and applied herself several years ago, a damask pattern of brown, black, and dark purple with occasional white eyeballs shot through with red.
Those bloodshot eyes stand out; it’s a detail that makes the visual feel literally alive.
The bulk of the novel focuses on aging artist Vivienne Volker, who may or may not have committed a murder decades earlier, and her return to the spotlight with a gallery show. It’s through the controversy surrounding this that Russo offers readers a window into how online reactions to it play out; it’s one of the better evocations of social media in prose I’ve encountered, recalling Dennis Cooper’s The Sluts at times.
Where I’m feeling more conflicted is the final twist in the narrative, which takes a book that could be described as a satire of the art world and social media and shifts into a more speculative realm. I almost always appreciate a big swing, and the time jump that closes out the book certainly qualifies; the fate it describes for one character seems to be in keeping with the overall give and take with respect to the personal and the reductive qualities of modern life.
Still, I’m not sure that the ending works as such, in part because Russo has, until this point, written a novel that could have felt very sterile and kept it pulsing throughout. The closing section feels more didactic in a way that the rest of the novel does not. Still, art wouldn’t be art without risks; in the case of the conclusion, I appreciated what Russo was doing on an intellectual level more than I connected with it emotionally. So be it.
***
Vivienne
by Emmalea Russo
Arcade; 244 p.