My Death [signed] [first edition]

“...all at once, as if another light had been switched on, I saw the hidden picture. Within the contours of the island was a woman. A woman, naked, on her back, her knees up and legs splayed open, her face hidden by a forearm flung across it and by the long hair greenish, grayish that flowed around her like the sea. “The center of the painting, what drew the eye and commanded the attention, was the woman s vulva: all the life of the painting was concentrated there. A slash of pink, startling against the mossy greens and browns, seemed to touch a nerve in my own groin.” -- from My Death The narrator of this creepy but feministically delicious novella, an early 21st-century novelist, decides to write the biography of Helen Ralston, an all-but-forgotten 20th-century novelist she has long admired. In the late 1920s, Helen studied painting with W.E. Logan. Logan painted her as Circe, and Helen painted herself as an island titled My Death. When they parted for good, both turned to writing. Willy became famous; Helen did not. The narrator of My Death intends to do something about that. But first she must solve the mystery of Helen’s relationship with Willy and why Helen titled her self-portrait My Death.