A Hook in the Sky: Review

A Hook in the Sky
Author: Claude Nougat
Pages: 245

Summary:

A HOOK IN THE SKY is a BB novel - for Baby Boomers as YA novels are for Young Adults. Robert, a dashing Frenchman in his early sixties, is involved in humanitarian aid at the United Nations and Kay, his wife, a chic Manhattan socialite, is passionate about contemporary art. She is fifteen years younger and runs a flourishing art gallery in Chelsea. The couple is childless, much to Robert’s disappointment. Everything pulls them apart, their culture, tastes and age. Until he retires, neither are aware of the differences.

When Robert attempts a second life as a painter displaying his old-fashioned inclination for conventional photo-realism, Kay is dismayed. They fight over art - he’s square, she’s cool - but what is at stake is their relationship. After a period of separation marked by sexual adventures and disenchantment, Robert attempts to remodel himself as a contemporary artist to win back his wife. He dreams up a weird installation called a "Hook in the Sky" that could change their lives forever but wreaks havoc around them...

My Thoughts:

Robert is a newly retired man who worked for the United Nations. After he retires he's inspired to start painting again, something he hasn't done since he was a child. He dreams of being an artist but his much younger wife has a completely different taste in art. After retirement the couple starts to recognize all the differences between them and their marriage starts to dissolve.

I want to start off by saying that this book is aimed towards older readers. It's a novel for Baby Boomers so i may be too young to truly appreciate this book the way an older reader would. With that being said, I still did enjoy this story. I really did not like Robert's wife Kay very much. I felt that she was very cold at times and that she was very self-centered. You can tell that the author was very knowledgeable about the United Nations and about art as well. I hope that at that age I don't have a marriage like Robert and Kay had. If you are a Baby Boomer I think that you would really enjoy this book and even more so if you are a fan of art.

Author Talk:

Here's a little bit of information about the author in her own words:

Like the protagonist in A HOOK, I've retired after 25 years of work in the United Nations (at the close of my career in FAO, I was director for Europe and Central Asia) and I first took up painting, a lifelong passion I inherited from my mother who is a professional painter. Much of the contemporary art scene described in A HOOK is based on my own experience - I participated in 15 shows and I certainly share in my protag's ambivalent feelings towards conceptual art. Where I differ from him is that I'm a woman and my marriage is definitely not on the rocks (!). I live with my Sicilian husband in Rome and while we don't have pets, we have two (grown-up) children. You will find more information on my Amazon author page and blog (I post at least once a week about art, books and social issues).

Goodreads Author Page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4992057.Claude_Nougat
Claude's Blog: http://claudenougat.blogspot.com/
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Claude-Nougat/e/B0054DBGLK
Here's a link to where you can get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Hook-Sky-Claude-Nougat/dp/1479333603/ref=la_B0054DBGLK_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351646587&sr=1-1

*I received this book in exchange for an honest review.