''Alice Knott'' is a 2020 novel by American author

Blake Butler John David Blake Butler (22 October 1924 – 15 April 1981) was an English actor best known for his role as the lecherous chief librarian Mr. Wainwright during the first and third series of ''Last of the Summer Wine'' in 1973 and 1976 res ...

. The novel concerns the theft and destruction of a painting collection and its impact on the painting's original owner, the titular Alice Knott. In ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

'', Brooks Sterritt wrote that the book "...resonates so strongly with life under lockdown", though noting that the book was completed before the 2020 pandemic.

Development and writing

Butler's earliest inspiration for the book was a note written to himself reading “Corporation that buys and destroys art”. He was further inspired by the

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...

novel ''

The Crying of Lot 49 ''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a 1966 novel by American author Thomas Pynchon. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-ol ...

''.

Reception

Critics highlighted that the book could be challenging.

References

{{2020s-novel-stub 2020 American novels Riverhead Books books Novels about artists