The Cloud of Knowing
Description
Award-winning memoirist and biographer Benjamin Taylor turns his eye toward the biographer's art itself in this riveting "biomystery," which bears comparison to Henry James's The Aspern Papers.
Francie Bogenschine is an independent, guileful ninety-year-old Greenwich Village widow whose husband, the renowned composer Rafael Bogenschine, killed himself at the height of his fame. The incident happened back in 1967, and Francie has fended off would-be biographers for decades, but finally decides to cooperate with one, a leading music historian named Daniel Sidorsky. The novel takes the form of Francie's notebook, in which she faithfully writes down everything that is happening to her--not least what is happening as the result of her cooperation with Sidorsky. Will the biographer's probe uncover the mysteries surrounding Bogenschine's work, his womanizing, and his desire to leave this earthly plane?
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Person
Benjamin Taylor is the author of Chasing Bright Medusas: A Life of Willa Cather (Viking, 2023) and Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth (Penguin Books, 2020). He received a 2021 Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His memoir The Hue and Cry at Our House: A Year Remembered, received the 2017 Los Angeles Times-Christopher Isherwood Prize and was named a New York Times Editors' Choice. His Proust: The Search was named a Best Book of 2015 by Thomas Mallon in The New York Times Book Review and Robert McCrum in The Observer. Taylor is a past fellow and current trustee of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and serves as president of the Edward F. Albee Foundation. He teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York City.