Kiki Man Ray Art, love, and rivalry in 1920s Paris

With Animal Joy, poet/psychoanalyst Alsadir, a National Book Critics Circle finalist for the collection Fourth Person Singular, gets serious about studying the importance of laughter (30,000-copy first printing). Long-listed for the National Book Award and a Granta Best of Young American Novelists, Ball was inspired by French writer/artist Édouard Levé's memoir (written at age 39) to offer his own frank Autoportrait in his 39th year. In 1920s Paris, Kiki de Montparnasse was a model, muse, and friend to cultural greats and an artist, cabaret star, and driving force in her own right, as Braude (The Invisible Emperor) highlights in Kiki Man Ray. With Eliot After "The Waste Land," award-winning scholar/poet Crawford follows up his highly regarded Young Eliot (10,000-copy first printing). Standing as both memoir and memorial, Black Folk Could Fly is a first selection of personal nonfiction from the late author/mentor Kenan, whose award-winning works powerfully communicate his experience of being Black, gay, and Southern. Lowell's Memoirs collects the complete autobiographical prose of the great poet, including unpublished early work (10,000-copy first printing). What is home but A Place in the World, and Tuscany celebrant Mayes's new book explores what home really means in all its variations. As Morris explains in her first book of nonfiction, she came to the writing career launched with the multi-million-copy best-selling The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Listening Well (50,000-copy first printing). Composer of the Tony-nominated musical Once Upon a Mattress, author of the novel Freaky Friday and the follow-up screenplay, and chair of the Juilliard School, Rodgers has a lot more to discuss in Shy than being the daughter of Richard Rodgers (25,000-copy first printing). Addressed to Wohl's brother Bobby, who died in 1965, As It Turns Out reconstructs the life of their sister, the iconic actress/model Edie Sedgwick made famous by Andy Warhol (30,000-copy first printing).

A spotlight on an artist's muse. In a brisk chronicle of Paris between the wars, cultural historian Braude features photographer, filmmaker, and painter Man Ray (1890-1976), born Emmanuel Radnitzky, and chanteuse, painter, and model Kiki, born Alice Ernestine Prin (1901-1953). Both Man Ray, a Jewish New Yorker, and Kiki, who grew up poor in Burgundy, came to Paris to reinvent themselves and fulfill their dreams: Kiki's, "of falling in love with a poet, painter, or actor"; Man Ray's, to be recognized as a painter. At 16, Kiki took to frequenting the Rotonde, where she met artists who invited her to model. Among them was Maurice Mendjizky, who became her lover and gave her the nickname Kiki--"a bit of slang," Braude notes, "to describe all sorts of things: chicken giblets; someone's neck (usually strangled or hanged); a cock's crow; having a chat; having sex." Alice eagerly adopted it. A popular model, she sat for Modigliani, Soutine, and, in 1921, for newly arrived Man Ray. In New York, he had been befriended by iconoclast Marcel Duchamp and eminent photographer Arthur Stieglitz, who had seen the Armory Show and came away astonished. Painting intently in Paris, Man Ray supported himself by taking portrait photographs of the rich and famous, including Gertrude Stein, Picasso, and Braque. Being photographed by Man Ray, Sylvia Beach remarked, "meant you rated as someone." His involvement with Dadaists and surrealists inspired his innovations in photography and film, which soon eclipsed painting as his primary artistic focus. He may have been jealous, Braude speculates, of the praise Kiki garnered for her own paintings and the acclaim she received for her nightclub performances. During their seven-year affair, she served as Man Ray's muse as well as caretaker; but "her physical presence, her erotic charms, her joyfulness, and her mental quickness" made her a vibrant force in a colorful world--and the heart of Braude's history. A rich, affectionate look at bohemian Paris. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.