The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing

A panoply of artists offer a rare peek into the mysteries and mundanities of the creative process in this captivating compendium. Former New York magazine editor Moss (coeditor, New York Stories) asked writers George Saunders and Louise Glück, filmmaker Sofia Coppola, New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz, chef Jody Williams, and others to walk him through “in as much detail as they could muster” the life span of a single piece of art, providing along the way such “physical documentation” as annotated pages and coffee-stained napkin drawings. Profile subjects tell of building failure into the process, painting over canvases, and working in longhand to write “freer.” George Saunders gave himself six months to “just goof around” as he waited for another book’s release date before something “kicked... open in my head” and he started work in earnest on what became Lincoln in the Bardo. Elsewhere, Louise Glück speaks of the often-maddening value of patience (“you can will things, but whenever I’ve tried to do that, the poem just goes to hell”). Moss concludes on a fascinating note, musing that while “artists don’t have more interesting dreams than the rest of us,” they do possess “an unusual ability to cross over—to get entrance to that inarticulable place, and then to capture what they can make use of.” It’s a must-read for creatives of all stripes. Agent: David Kuhn, Aevitas Creative Management. (Apr.)