Composite Tissue Allograft

In this confusing and self-serving study, Lipton (formerly, Art History/SUNY-Binghamton; Looking into Degas, 1986 - not reviewed) claims to find in Victorine Meurent (Manet's favorite model, known as Olympia ): herself; a mother-figure; and a surrogate victim of the patriarchal community of artists and art historians. Most of the narrative here is about Lipton and her rages - against her mother for abandoning and then abusing her; against the faithless father whom Lipton thinks she has spent her life trying to please; against her arrogant first husband, the parents of her current husband/lover (the relationship is unclear), a friend who visited her in Paris (where most of the book takes place), a courteous librarian who was unable to find the manuscript Lipton wanted ( Idiot! ), and a male academic who served on her dissertation committee. Lipton admires sensuous female contemporaries; speculates on their sexuality; and offers, for no apparent reason, a detailed description of a meal she ate in Paris, of several tawdry sexual encounters, and of the position she most enjoys in bed with her husband, a locksmith who decided to become a professional painter. The real problem is fitting Olympia into all of this. Having depicted herself as a Jewish intellectual attending CUNY in the 50's, a misguided academic who later decided to give up her career to become a writer, and an overanalyzed and self-preoccupied feminist, Lipton resembles Woody Allen more than Olympia. As for Olympia - the author's alias - Lipton concludes that she lived as a neglected painter and lesbian and died at an advanced age in a suburb of Paris. Unable to find any records of her, Lipton fears that Olympia had no life - that she was a nothing. Olympia deserves better and, fortunately, she received it in Otto Friedrich's Olympia (p. 30), which captured her dignity and stature as an icon of her age. (Kirkus Reviews)