Wreckage

My Father's Legacy of Art & Junk

Sascha Feinstein

2017
218 pages
ISBN 9781611487855

In this memoir Sascha Feinstein recounts life with his father, Sam Feinstein, who was both a brilliant artist and a hoarder of monumental proportions. He collected only uncollectible objects - artifacts that required him to give them importance - and at the time of his death in 2003, his hoarding had literally destroyed all three of his large homes. Despite this, Sam Feinstein was a focused artist and art teacher. This strange double helix of creativity and destruction guides the various reflections in this memoir.

Like his students' canvases - paintings inspired by enormous still lifes constructed from the world's refuse - this book incorporates a myriad of sources in order to create a more layered experience for the reader. The final result is the depiction of a painter with the highest artistic ideals who nevertheless left behind an incalculable amount of physical and emotional wreckage.

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About the author:

Sascha Feinstein is professor of English and co-director of the Creative Writing Program at Lycoming College.

Distributed by Bloomsbury (formerly by Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group)

eBook: 9781611487862