Conversation; Or, Pilgrims' Progress

A painter torn between his domestic arrangements and his artistic pursuits makes a fateful choice in this brilliant and provocative novel from a winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize Timothy Kane brought his wife and young daughter to Cape Cod in order to find the peace and quiet necessary to paint. But the mood inside their small cottage is far from tranquil--a past affair weighs on Timothy's conscience, and the strain of running a household by herself is causing Enid to resent her husband. To make matters worse, Timothy's friend Jim Connor has decided to move to the Cape and bring a gaggle of their Greenwich Village acquaintances with him. A committed anarchist, Jim does more than just preach the redistribution of wealth: He accomplishes it himself by shoplifting from department stores and giving the loot to struggling poets and painters. Jim and his rabble-rousing, art-obsessed crew stir up trouble wherever they go, and Timothy's association with the group soon becomes a major point of contention between him and Enid. She expects him to sacrifice his friendship for the sake of his family's security--a demand that runs counter to Timothy's nature and his sense of what it means to be an artist. With the pressure mounting, he must find a way to balance his marriage and his work, or risk devastating consequences to both. An exquisitely crafted story about the hard truths of the creative life, Conversation has been lauded by the New York Times as a testament to "the brilliance of [Conrad Aiken's] mind and the understanding of his heart."

About the Author :
Conrad Aiken (1889-1973) was an American poet, novelist, and short story author, and one of the most acclaimed writers of the twentieth century. His numerous honors include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Award for Poetry, the Bollingen Prize, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal. Born in Savannah, Georgia, Aiken was orphaned at a young age and was raised by his great-great-aunt in Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University with T. S. Eliot and was a contributing editor to the influential literary journal the Dial, where he befriended Ezra Pound. Aiken published more than fifty works of poetry, fiction, and criticism, including the novels Blue Voyage, Great Circle, King Coffin, A Heart for the Gods of Mexico, and Conversation, and the widely anthologized short stories "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" and "Mr. Arcularis." He played a key role in establishing Emily Dickinson's status as a major American poet, mentored a young Malcolm Lowry, and served as the US poet laureate from 1950 to 1952. Aiken returned to Savannah eleven years before his death; the epitaph on his tombstone in Bonaventure Cemetery reads: Cosmos Mariner, Destination Unknown.

Review :
""A vivid portrait of the artist as a father, husband, lover and friend...Its truths are haunting and its language alive with perception of things seen, heard and felt through the senses of the poet." --The New York Times "[Conrad Aiken is] perhaps the most exciting, the most finally satisfying of living novelists." --Graham Greene "An intensely individual novelist . . . The reader will find himself drawn into a fictional world that is complex and engrossing as well as absolutely personal." --TheNew York Times Book Review "One of the five living greatest writers." --Malcolm Lowry "With his magnificent technical equipments, his mastery of the word, his active imagination . . . [Conrad Aiken was] a towering figure." --Malcolm Cowley