Radiant Days

Starred review from February 20, 2012
Hand (Illyria) returns with a surreal tale of art’s ability to transcend time. In 1978, Merle Tappitt, a talented painter and graffiti artist, is kicked out of art school (where she had been having an affair with a teacher). Merle takes to the streets of Washington, D.C., and runs into a legendary, now homeless guitarist, Ted Kampfert, who points her toward a lockhouse by a canal where she can spend the night. Meanwhile, in 1870, 16-year-old poet Arthur Rimbaud sets out for Paris, also bedding down in a lockhouse. The next morning, Merle and Arthur awake together in 1978. Merle and Arthur, both gay, form a mystical bond, time-slipping between their worlds, each influencing the other to produce great art. Hand’s descriptions of art and poetry as they are being made are breathtaking—“In front of me was a whorl of black and red, emerald vines and orange flame, a shifting wheel of shadowy forms like those cave paintings drawn in charcoal”—and her troubled, beautifully drawn characters make the heart ache. Ages 14–up. Agent: Martha Millard, Martha Millard Literary Agency.

February 15, 2012
A 20th-century teen artist and 19th-century French poet Arthur Rimbaud transcend time and place in this luminous paean to the transformative power of art. In September 1977, 18-year-old Merle leaves rural Virginia to attend the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. Her drawings catch the eye of drawing instructor Clea, who initiates a romantic relationship with Merle. Overwhelmed by the sophisticated urban art scene, Merle drifts out of school. When Clea drops her, a homeless Merle desperately spray-paints her signature sun-eye graffiti across the city until she encounters a mercurial tramp who mystically connects her with the visionary Rimbaud, in the bloom of his artistic powers at age 16. Incredulous over their stunning time travel, Merle and Rimbaud recognize they are kindred spirits who live to create. Hand deftly alternates between Merle's first-person, past-tense story and a third-person account of Rimbaud during the Franco-Prussian War of 1871-72, laced with excerpts from his poems and letters. Suffused with powerful images of light, this intensely lyrical portrait of two androgynous young artists who magically traverse a century to briefly escape their equally disturbing worlds expands the themes of artistic isolation and passion Hand first introduced in Illyria (2010). An impressive blend of biography and magical realism. (author's notes; select bibliography) (Fantasy. 14 & up)

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May 1, 2012

Gr 9 Up-Merle Tappitt, 18, is an art student from the hills of Appalachia living in Washington, DC, in the late 1970s. Talented and inexperienced, she is seduced by her married art instructor not long after she starts class at the Corcoran School of Art. Clea becomes Merle's muse, and the gifted teen's sketchbook is soon brimming over with portraits of the older woman. When Clea breaks up with her and her apartment building is set for demolition, Merle abandons painting and drawing for tagging, spray painting her "Radiant Days" logo throughout the city. In alternating chapters, readers are introduced to a young Arthur Rimbaud, the French poet who lived from 1854 to 1891. (The poet's impassioned words and deeply felt emotions have influenced generations of writers, artist, and musicians, including Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, and Jim Morrison.) With the help of a washed-up musician who may or may not be a Greek deity in disguise, Arthur and Merle are able to enter one another's worlds and spend time together. Hand writes in an ambitious, erudite style, and her narrative will hold the attention of thoughtful, sophisticated readers. It is about self-actualization and coming of age as an artist, but readers yearning for a typical romance will most likely be disappointed. However, those who choose to follow Merle and Arthur's story to the end will be transported by the poetic language and magical encounters.-Leah Krippner, Harlem High School, Machesney Park, IL

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2012
Grades 10-1 Merle, a graffiti artist and art-school dropout, tags the streets of 1970s Washington, D.C., with her trademark, an exploding sun with the words Radiant Days scrawled on walls and buildings. She has nothing left. No family, no friendseven her art is stolen from the condemned flat where she was squatting. In a separate story line set 100 years earlier, Arthur, who traverses 1870s France, spends his time writing poetry, getting arrested, and reveling in the freedom of his rootless existence. This fantasy-tinged novel introduces readers to Arthur Rimbaud, the patron saint of young artists, and his expansive sphere of influence in a way that will capture readers' interest. Hand's strong suit is conjuring up vivid images, but while Merle's narrative is rendered in beautiful, frustrated, and disbelieving first person, the omniscient third granted to Rimbaud's passages falls flat in comparison. Still, his speculative, detailed, and evocative flight of fancy is a stirring tribute to a man and his art.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)