A Cloud of Ink is a wryly elegiac fragment of a memoir of a younger version of the author, Anna, a hermetic, self-styled “femme fatale” inclined to the perspective of Radical Traditionalism. G., the object of her dedicated affection, is a Modern Guy (his band) and the picture of a troubled young man with the promise of genius – a mathematical prodigy, a successful song writer and Parisian rock star who has, in a philosophic turn, eschewed the impositions of early fame to study film at UCLA while, on the side, ghost-writing a well financed biography of Picasso under the ruse of doing “research”. His employer is a rising, enigmatic phenomenon in the worlds of American society, politics, and publishing, who has recognized in G.’s talents and childhood familiarity with Picasso’s family the elements of a valuable resource. G., on the other hand, invites speculation as to whether his own dark psychological struggles have crept into his narrative of Picasso’s life when he confesses to having embedded “monstrous fabulations” into the work. The two inhabit a world where anguish and ecstasy coexist like a narcotic obsession, where the full intensity of destructive and dangerous beauty blossoms into a sorrow bordering on plaintive horror.

Edited by A n t o n  K a i s e r,  University of Vienna, BA Yale Russian Studies, MA UC Boulder.