Seek my face [a novel]

Summary: In this latest novel by a master of American fiction, Pulitzer Prize winner John Updike lays out the triumphant story of postwar American art. Through a dialogue between Hope Chafetz, a 79-year-old painter who has seen artistic times and trends evolve and change, and an interviewer named Kathryn, we learn of Hope's history and the history of modern art at the same time. But this book is not a thinly-veiled treatise. What is important is the relationship between Hope and Kathryn. Their roles shift from interviewer and interviewee to mother and daughter, therapist and patient, predator and prey, annunciatory angel and startled receptacle of grace. Updike makes us feel for these characters with his deft novelistic touches, acquired over years of honing his craft.