Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers.
Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains.
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
How I love when art gets meta: when a writer or artist has the self-awareness and genuine capacity to make fun of themselves. That’s what we mean when we say the writing is “honest”. There’s no agenda to convince or win over the reader, just a need to show, everything, even the warty not-attractive bits.
With her first novel, Meeting Damian Lewis, Christine Wilson has succeeded beautifully in that effort.
