Maker of Saints - Hardcover

Set in the hothouse world of the Manhattan art scene, this second novel by Thulani Davis combines a haunting examination of modern melancholia with a good old-fashioned murder investigation. The protagonist is Bird, whose closest friend Alex Decatur has just died as a result of a fall--or was she pushed?--from a window. Alex's defenestration, and Bird's suspicions as to the involvement of her lover Frank Burton, an art critic who has savaged Bird's own paintings, sets the plot in motion. Bird is a bumbling gumshoe, but her obsession with Alex's death takes her further and further into her own sense of loss and stasis. This reflective and up-to-the-minute work hinges on Bird's search for a way back into her art--and her life.

Thulani Davis teaches writing at Princeton University and Barnard College.