Contrapposto

Bestseller Eggers (The Every) unfurls a decades-spanning story of love and art. At 15, Cricket Dibb begins commuting from his home in 1980s Indiana to a drawing class in Chicago, believing it’s time to take his work seriously if he ever wants to become a real artist. His talent attracts the attention of classmate Olympia Argyros, a fearless girl one year older, who encourages him to exhibit his nude life drawings at his school library. Cricket falls in love with Olympia, but she’s restless and fickle. Meanwhile, he finds solace in his friendship with Jed, his coworker at a convenience store, after his drawings are banned from the library. Later, ROTC graduate Jed gets deployed to Kuwait during the Gulf War and dies in a freak accident, inspiring Olympia to curate an installation in his honor. Olympia flits in and out of Cricket’s life, stoking his erotic and emotional devotion (“She’d always felt free to touch any part of him at any time, and he did not mind”). As Cricket reaches middle age, he has melancholy but sanguine epiphanies about a life dedicated to art and his enduring passion for Olympia (“Every year Cricket felt more—of everything—and every year his eyes had only gotten better, younger, his aperture opening, opening, opening”). It’s a tour de force. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (June)