Sunday Books & Culture - Novel
AMIMA RISING
By Christopher Moore
Published by William Morrow (May 13, 2025)
Hardcover $24.00
Audiobook $14.95
Some readers of the FXBG Advance may have seen the first installment of “Summer Reads” that our writers, editors, and readers chose as books they are looking forward to reading this summer. The list of three titles was not light beach fare. And that is putting it generously.
When I think of summer, I tend to think of the beach and not how elites fuel populism unless they do it with a Corona in hand. What I do think about for summer reading is Christopher Moore, and fortunately Moore has graced us with his 19th book, Anima Rising, just in time for beach season.
Some readers might think that reading about the painter Gustav Klimt and other great minds of early 20th Century Vienna does not constitute light beach reading, but then, they don’t truly know the beauty that is Christopher Moore. The fact that Klimt is regarded as one of the founders of the Vienna Secession Movement in art might be a disqualifier to some, but the man painted lots of nudes and had lots of sex which gets us, as readers, a little closer to something that will keep our interest poolside.
“The critics called him a Symbolist painter, and he had gladly taken on the label, created works to enhance the reputation, to give his work intellectual heft that he—educated as a craftsman not at the Academy of Fine Arts, but at the School of Applied Arts—felt he did not have. Symbols to somehow throw a haze over the fact that he was simply a working-class fellow who liked drawing, painting, spending time with, and bedding pretty women.”
Of course, the novel is much more than Klimt painting nudes and Sigmund Freud talking about penises (which he does do a lot). The narrative starts with Klimt finding the corpse of a woman in the Danube Canal in the middle of the night. The pale corpse is strangely beautiful, and Klimt, ever the artist, wants to paint her rather than tell the police about her. When she begins to wake up, it only further complicates the matter for the renowned artist.
Klimt takes a liking to the revitalized corpse, as do the models who lounge about his studio on most days, and they name her Judith while trying to figure out a past that Judith cannot remember. Moore interweaves Judith’s past as the Bride of Frankenstein with the Klimt story arc which allows him to explore a bit of Mary Shelley and the folklore of the Eskimos. (Astute readers will argue that Judith was not in fact Frankenstein’s Bride because Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster, but I’m going with the front cover description, so any complaints should be levelled at the publishing house.) When Moore does a dive into these offshoots from his main narrative, it is like watching a gifted jazz musician solo.
Summers are meant to be fun and sometimes silly. Summers are meant for reading Christopher Moore.
Drew Gallagher is a freelance writer residing in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is the second-most-prolific book reviewer and first video book reviewer in the 140-year history of the Free Lance-Star Newspaper. He aspires to be the second-most-prolific book reviewer in the history of FXBG Advance.
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