Widow Basquiat
by Jennifer Clement
Buy on AmazonThe beautifully written, deeply affecting story of Jean-Michel Basquiat's partner, her past, and their life together An NPR Best Book of the Year Selection New York City in the 1980s was a mesmerizing, wild place. A hotbed for hip hop, underground culture, and unmatched creative energy, it spawned some of the most significant art of the 20th century. It was where Jean-Michel Basquiat became an avant-garde street artist and painter, swiftly achieving worldwide fame. During the years before his death at the age of 27, he shared his life with his lover and muse, Suzanne Mallouk. A runaway from an unhappy home in Canada, Suzanne first met Jean-Michel in a bar on the Lower East Side in 1980.…
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"Jennifer Clement uses lyrical vignettes to tell the fraught story of a close friend, Suzanne Mallouk, better known to New York City’s 1980s art world as the last woman Jean-Michel Basquiat loved. The tragic spectacle of Basquiat’s life and art has become so notorious, it’s somewhat difficult to remember he was an actual human being. Clement restores both his humanity — hurt and hurtful, brilliant and blazing — and, just as crucially, pulls Mallouk out of the art scene’s shadows and into the light. To say that this is the most compelling book you’ll ever encounter about Basquiat is just the beginning of the praise Clement deserves."
NPR Books We Love — 2015 · apps.npr.org
"Widow Basquiat, by Jennifer Clement, is beautiful and no one seems to know it when I bring it up."
By the Book: Xochitl Gonzalez · nytimes.com