Twelve books that illuminate the long road to becoming an artist

Antonia Angress was born in Los Angeles and raised in San José, Costa Rica. She is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Minnesota MFA program, where she was a Winifred Fiction Fellow and a College of Liberal Arts Fellow. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband, the artist Connor McManus.

Sirens & Muses is her first novel.

At Electric Lit Angress tagged twelve "Künstlerromans, novels about an artist coming into maturity," including:

Self-Portrait With Boy by Rachel Lyon

In this debut novel set in 1990s gentrifying Brooklyn, struggling photographer Lu Rile is scraping by and in danger of eviction when she accidentally captures a masterpiece: an image of her neighbor’s child falling to his death outside her window. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Lu is drawn into a friendship with the boy’s grieving mother and faces an increasingly painful dilemma: the photograph could jumpstart her career, but at what cost? This is an addictive, spellbinding exploration of sacrifice and the moral cost of ambition.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Self-Portrait with Boy.

My Book, The Movie: Self-Portrait with Boy.

--Marshal Zeringue