In this satisfyingly old-school novel, an artist tries to find his place, and hold onto his spark, in a world that values fads and flash. . . . Contrapposto is an earthy, warm return to form . . . . To call the book moving would be a smelly cliché, so let s say undulating, with both despair and hope.
Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book Review
Eggers has written a big-hearted, deeply moving story about the choices artists make, or don t make, to square up their own notions of success and happiness. . . . As Contrapposto arrives at its beautiful, life-affirming conclusion, we are left pondering the significance of artistic endeavor in a world that commodifies everything, including our bodies and brains. At a time when even the greatest achievements are debased in a culture that gives equal weight to meretricious novelty, is it even worth the trouble? Eggers brilliant novel has the answer: Follow your bliss. In the final analysis, it is all that matters.
Los Angeles Times
Contrapposto is a rare thing, a smart book about the joy of being creative and open to everything.
Chicago Tribune
A moving, humane and witty portrait of the lifelong friendship.
San Francisco Chronicle
I savored this book, dipping into the world of these characters over the last couple of weeks, and when I finished it yesterday, I found my eyes filled with tears. I love a novel that reminds us how long life is and how powerful the persistence of being can be. Though all our biological parts might be replaced, the self remains and is not diminished, but enlarged.
Alexis Madrigal, KQED s The Forum
Glorious and captivating, with Eggers signature humor and precision, Contrapposto tells a big and big-hearted story that counter-positions exquisitely the pain and exhilarations of love and the creative impulse. I loved this novel.
Lily King, author of Heart the Lover
This is a portrait of an artist as a young man, but then on through life, to the end, told by one of our finest artists. With Contrapposto, Dave Eggers gives us, generously and precisely, clear and bright, a story about why we create, and how we love.
Tommy Orange, author of Wandering Stars
This book speaks to my heart. With wit, wisdom, and deep empathy, Contrapposto asks all the hard questions that haunt and enliven a creative life about art and beauty, about commerce and class, about the cost of passion and the price of success.
Ruth Ozeki, author of The Book of Form and Emptiness
A book of profundity, humanity, and ravishing beauty the only kind of book I want to read.
Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less
Dave Eggers new novel, Contrapposto, begins with a simple question: What is art? The answer turns out to be a stunning high-wire act and, boy, does Eggers stick the landing. Better yet, the book is a love story that just won t quit.
Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls
Contrapposto is extraordinary, a lucid and passionate künstlerroman and a drawing of the negative space around the contemporary art world. Cricket, given great talent and passion, is also a quiet rebel: His inability to agree to any of the small compromises necessary to become a big name is what keeps his art a pure, good, white-hot thing.
Lauren Groff, author of Brawler
Contrapposto answers the question, Why are novels irreplaceable? From page one, I fell in love with its perfectly flawed characters, its big beating heart, its brain and its language. What a sublime act of fiction.
David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas
Eggers has been a reliably inventive, big-swing storyteller with a knack for mixing heart, humor, and a little cultural side-eye. . . . What begins as a grade-school act of vandalism becomes a 65-year entanglement of friendship, collaboration, and longing.
Oprah Daily
The inimitable Dave Eggers returns with a book about life, love and art, featuring the classically trained artist s own work. . . . So begins 50 years of dancing around the art world and each other as they search for love, meaning, loyalty and more.
People
In this marvelous and astutely constructed story about love, companionship, and the search (within ourselves and elsewhere) for great beauty, Eggers has crafted an unforgettable tale of two singular characters who, for better or worse, belong together, and invites us come along on the astonishing, heartbreaking, and incredibly worthwhile journey for them to figure out how.
Town & Country
