Book description
Where is reality to be found: at the surface of things or behind it?
Max Willem, a young art student in Montreal at the end of the 1960s,
becomes obsessed with outward appearances - with makeup, costume, and
masks of all kinds. For him, outward reality, and in particular that
of the opposite sex, is composed of many veils of illusion and
artifice through which he must see if he is to feel fully alive. At
the same time, Max discovers his exceptional talent for art forgery.
Moving to New York, he becomes a tool in the hands of a powerful
international ring dealing in forged art, and suffers from the loss of
his own artistic integrity. Himself seduced as much a seducer, how can
Max escape and redeem his artistic soul?
In The Art of Deception, Sergio Kokis has written a novel
about mystification and illusion. His exuberant narrative provides a
caustic insight into the undersides of art and of love.
Sergio Kokis is the author of eight novels. His first, Le
pavillon des miroirs (translated as Funhouse) won four major
literary prizes in 1994. L'art du maquillage (translated here
as The Art of Deception) appeared in 1997.
W. Donald Wilson was born in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, in
1938. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Trinity
College, Dublin, and has taught at universities in the West Indies and
England, and Canada. He lives in Waterloo, Ontario.
