Talking of Michelangelo

Scheduled for publication by Pierian Springs Press on February 24, 2025.

Set in the tumultuous 1960’s, Talking of Michelangelo explores what remains when the obsession to create art collides with a world reeling from child abuse by predatory priests, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam war.

Childhood friends, Malone and Minifie grew up on opposite sides of the tracks.  Both wish to conquer the art world.  Malone’s artistic talent borders on genius; Minifie’s lags. 

Scarred as the victim of child abuse by his parish priest, Malone hides out in law school rather than exploit his artistic genius.  Envious of that genius, Minifie enters Malone’s painting, Talking of Michelangelo, in an important New York competition without Malone’s consent.  It places first and opens the door to New York’s art world for Malone.  He refuses to enter. 

Madison, as talented an artist as Malone, marries Malone.  Within months, she regrets abandoning her own artistic career to support an indigent law student who refuses to promote his career as an artist.

During the 1968 Columbia University riots, Malone suffers brain injuries which temporarily blind him.  There are blind lawyers, he rationalizes, but not blind artists.  Minifie’s death in Vietnam forces him to confront his spiritual and physical blindness and the consequences of his regaining his vision. 

When I was at Columbia Law, riots shut down the University during the 1968 spring semester.  I was a member of the task force led by Archibald Cox that produced an exhaustive report regarding the riots, Cox, Archibald; et al.. Crisis at Columbia, Vintage Books (1968).  Talking of Michelangelo is based in part on my Columbia experience.