What You Make of Me

A brother and sister’s artistic rivalry intensifies when they fall for the same woman in Dess’s electrifying debut. In the novel’s framing device, Ava Stern’s older brother, Demetri, is near death from a tumor. Ava, a painter, writes about their life together while the 31-year-old documentary filmmaker lies unresponsive in home hospice care. She begins with their childhood on Long Island, where they were raised by an aloof father after their mother died by suicide when they were eight and seven. Both children show artistic promise, but their teachers favor the serious-minded Demetri, while Ava, deemed “oversexed” by school officials, acts impulsively in an effort to fit into her brother’s world. In one instance, she paints a nude portrait of a girl Demetri desires but is too anxious to approach. After Ava drops out of high school, they move to Boston so Demetri can attend Harvard, then to New York City, where they alternately support and undermine each over the course of their 20s. Their dynamic is unsettled when they meet Nati, an Italian gallerist who commissions Ava’s work and starts dating Demetri. After Ava begins an affair with Nati, she grows anxious about jeopardizing her bond with Demetri, especially as his health deteriorates and they clash over his idea to make a film about her. Dess harnesses her characters’ feelings of sorrow and dread as their bond unravels, and she skillfully untangles the complexities of their all-consuming relationship while offering keen insights into the pressures they face as artists, both from others and from within. It’s a tour de force. Agent Susan Golomb, Writers House. (Feb.)