After years of pursuing "serious" journalism, Solomon Fields gives in to getting a job writing advertisement copy after the recession ends his dreams of a creative life. Solomon's financial situation is much more secure, but his creative endeavors are over, and no one reminds him of this more than his grandmother, a free-spirited Holocaust survivor who urges him not to abandon his artistic leanings.
On the basis of a profile he wrote years ago about a well-known visual artist, a mysterious benefactor requests Solomon's presence to an artist's retreat on a remote island. Solomon is fed up with the superficiality of New York City, a place of promise that has changed for the worse, and with some trepidation, accepts the invitation.
The retreat is a tropical paradise, and its benefactor, known as Sebastian Light, is mysterious, a presumed rich man whose wealth and charisma have allowed him the freedom to build such a place. Its inhabitants are all artists of sorts, selected by Light to this remote location in order to spark a purified creativity. Most of them are painters. Solomon, the only writer among them, has been chosen by Light to write about him and his retreat.
Although questioned by Light and his assistant, Solomon puts off writing anything and instead observes the strangeness going on around him. Is Light's artist colony a true bastion of creativity, or is it a sort of cult? Light promises a measured freedom, but the retreat is difficult to leave. As such, Solomon questions Light's intent - whether he is truly a patron of creativity, or a control freak who lures the unsuspecting to a tropical paradise, where their entire activities are under scrutiny.
The Long Corner is a musing on living a creative life and the extremes to which some will go to live one, whether it is to distance oneself from latter day society, or to be clear-eyed enough and brash enough to live a life on one's own terms, no matter where one happens to be.
(William Hicks, Information Services)
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