Six Degrees of Separation – from The Museum of Modern Love to Demon Copperhead

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. This month’s starting point is The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose (2016). It’s about a man who becomes mesmerized by a performance art exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I used to work around the corner from MOMA so have been there fairly often (before it cost $30 per visit) but I kept my obsessions under control.

First Degree

New York is full of museums and they are full of visitors, despite being quite expensive. You Can’t Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum by Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman (1998) is extremely popular with NYC families. A little girl at the Metropolitan Museum with her grandmother loses her yellow balloon, which then goes on a crazy trip around the city. I’m not a fan of wordless picture books (too much effort and it’s hard to build a storyteller rhythm) but I have read this several times to nephews and nieces.

Second Degree

My favorite book with a museum setting is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg (1967). This Newbery Award winner is about Claudia and her brother Jamie, who run away from their suburban home in Connecticut to the Metropolitan Museum, and their adventures once they hide out there.  Readers of all ages love this book.

Third Degree

Staying with the Metropolitan Museum as my link, my next book is Art for Dummies by Thomas Hoving (1999). Hoving was an outgoing self-promoter who was the Director of the Museum from 1967-77 and is known for having pioneered the blockbuster museum exhibition. I had one memorable encounter with him when I was working for the Dummies publisher on his book. I had arranged to bring a group of Barnes & Noble book buyers to the Museum for a special tour with Hoving, then dinner a few blocks away at a French restaurant. My boss went straight to the Museum to meet Hoving. I went to B&N to gather my guests and organize them in two taxis. Unfortunately, we hit gridlock traffic going from 18th Street to 82nd and Fifth and I was afraid the Museum would shut before we got there or Hoving would be annoyed. However, when we finally arrived, he handled the situation with aplomb and changed our tour from “highlights” to “where to go if you only have 15 minutes at the Museum.” By the time we reached the restaurant and started on several bottles of wine, everyone had forgotten our annoying taxi ride.

Fourth Degree

Stealing the Show by John Barelli (2019) takes a behind the scenes look at the distinctly unglamorous business of museum security. Barelli worked under Hoving, spending 40 years as chief security officer of Metropolitan Museum, and this book describes some of the crimes that occurred on his watch; the investigations that captured thieves and recovered artwork, as well as art that was never found.

Fifth Degree

My next link is museum theft. Another book that features pivotal scenes at the Metropolitan Museum is The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2013), which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. It’s a coming of age story about Theo, who survives a terrorist attack at the Museum and steals a painting called The Goldfinch as he escapes. I liked parts of this book but felt it could have been ruthlessly edited in the middle.

Sixth Degree

All week I have been thinking about The Goldfinch because it reminded me of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2022), which I am reading and which also won the Pulitzer Prize. Nothing could be more different than Theo’s Manhattan and the opioid-infestation Demon grows up in but each boy self-medicates with alcohol and drugs, and no one intervenes. Both are coming of age stories about orphans, full of vivid characters and descriptions that transport the reader to that world, like it or not.

So I connected a book set in New York by an Australian author to Demon Copperhead (which is my book group’s August selection), that takes place in the mountains of southern Appalachia. Kingsolver knows this area well because she grew up in rural Kentucky Next month (September 7, 2024), the starting point will be After Story by Larissa Behrendt.