Author Picasso, granddaughter of the richest artist who ever lived, inherited almost a quarter of Picasso's wealth, including 400 paintings of great value. With Valentin, known francophonically for an untranslated biography of French singer Edith Piaf (Piaf : l'ange noir ), an erotic novel (36.15 : tapez, sexe)
and novelizations of French TV shows, she weighs in with an unrelievedly grim and bitter memoir of the artist-patriarch. A tedious one-sidedness becomes clear early on, when during a visit, Picasso asks his grandchildren how they are and how school is going, and the adult Marina comments: "Empty questions that don't need answers. A way of taming us whenever it suits him." She overreacts throughout the book, such as when Picasso and his son file their nails by rubbing them against a wall in Spanish peasant style: "It made me blush and feel sick with shame." The thuddingly prosaic text is not helped by a poor translation, as when Marina recounts her shock at seeing Picasso in his underpants, with "his overflowing attributes visible" or when she and her brother "sob silently while munching our misery apple." Readers will munch their own misery apple through this whiny narrative that accuses Picasso for not using his grandchildren as models in his art, instead "infecting" them with the "Picasso virus," which is apparently a result of neglecting family matters. (Nov. 12)
Forecast:The total absence of charity with regard to her famous benefactor and grandfather will limit this title's interest to gossip-mongers eager for the least scrap of Picasso dirt. While there could be some coat-tailing with the recently released
Loving Picasso, the memoir of Picasso mistress Fernande Olivier, the latter book is far more significant.
