The Chalk Artist

April 24, 2017
Goodman (The Cookbook Collector) probes the meaning and place of art in contemporary culture in her intricate and empathic novel. When artist and actor Collin is first drawn to Nina in a Harvard Square bar, he has no idea that the attractive young high school English teacher has no financial need to work at all. Her father is the head of Arkadia, a local gaming company at the leading edge of virtual reality technology. Convinced that Collin is squandering his talents, Nina encourages him to show his art to her father and his business partner, Nina’s cruelly perfectionist uncle. The novel then shifts its emotional focus to the struggles of one of Nina’s students and her increasingly troubled twin brother, who has become obsessed with Arkadia’s newest game. Exploring not only the varying ephemerality and permanence of both art and relationships, this richly textured novel also considers the commodification of art and art as a means to salvation. With its strong Boston setting, the novel also offers opportunities to consider the contrasts between local and virtual communities and the authenticity of the relationships each fosters.

March 1, 2017
In Boston, an idealistic schoolteacher gets her artist boyfriend a job with her father's video game company even as she's losing a promising student to the addiction of gaming.Goodman's (The Cookbook Collector, 2010, etc.) eighth novel takes place in two skillfully evoked worlds that are at war for the hearts and minds of young people: video games versus education, specifically high school English classes. Nina is the only child of the rich and powerful man behind Arkadia, a virtual-reality game company. Just out of college, she has taken a position with TeacherCorps and is now somewhat desperately attempting to communicate the joys of Emerson and Shakespeare to the ethnically diverse but universally bored students of Emerson High. Collin, the "chalk artist" of the title, is a 23-year-old dropout who works in a bar and can draw like an angel. Soon after the two fall in love, he finds himself designing horses on a high-tech tablet at the Arkadia image factory. Twins Aidan and Diana are Nina's students, but Aidan is not doing his homework. He is deeply lost in the world of "EverWhen," where his avatar meets and falls in love with a sexy Tree Elf named Riyah who says she can get him a pre-release of "Underworld," Arkadia's hotly awaited next game, if he will perform a real-world promotional task that crosses the line into criminality. The language and details of the games--sparkling aeroflakes, epic qwests, diamond flasks "filled with a hatchling dragon's blood"--are the strongest and most original elements of the book: in fact, nongaming readers may be surprised to find themselves wondering if they are missing out on something. On the other hand, some of the plot developments relating to Aidan feel forced, and his twin almost seems to be living in a different novel with her weight problems and sexuality issues. A very relevant love story with strong crossover possibilities for teen readers.

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May 1, 2017

The chalk artist of the title is Collin, a 23-year-old who works variously as a waiter, a bicycle mechanic, and a scenic designer and actor in an itinerant theater company. He is content with his freewheeling lifestyle until he gets involved with Nina, a serious-minded high school teacher struggling to control and engage her students in her first year on the job. Wanting to offer Collin more stability, Nina gets him a position at her father's video game company, Arkadia, working as an artist for an immersive game called UnderWorld. We also follow a search for identity by two of Nina's students, the twins Diana and Aidan. Diana explores body issues and sexuality, while Aidan becomes increasingly immersed in UnderWorld. One needn't be a gamer to follow the descriptions of the various aspects of the universe depicted, from the design and marketing processes within Arkadia to fan culture and the playing experience. VERDICT Aidan's addiction to gaming and the sometimes nefarious behavior resulting from it is a bit cliched, and the multitude of plot lines and characters make it difficult to find the novel's center. Finally, though, each character's arc is brought to a satisfactory conclusion. [See Prepub Alert, 12/19/16.]--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2017
What do you do when ambition collides with love? Goodman (The Cookbook Collector, 2010) answers this messy question with nuance in this heartfelt story about class. Young Nina Lazare is trying to escape her privileged upbringing. The daughter of a computer-gaming guru, she is a recruit with a Teach for Americalike corps, teaching reluctant high-schoolers the subtleties of English. Collin, a rudderless and poor 23-year-old chalk artist, is bowled over by Nina after she frequents the Cambridge, Massachusetts, bar where he works. On a parallel track, high-school twins Aidan and Diana are mucking around in their own teenage circles, one through an addiction to a role-playing game called EverWhen and the other by doing everything she can to be invisible at school. Recognizing Collin's immense talent, Nina introduces him to her father's gaming empire, but the young man finds himself ill-equipped to navigate the corridors of power. Goodman poses but doesn't thoroughly explore the intriguing question of intent versus outcome, of just how Nina's help might be perceived, veering back to more predictable, if enjoyable, narrative terrain.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)