Bold Ventures

A prize-winning Belgian poet explores the nature of creative endeavorthe godlike ambition the crushing defeat of failurethrough the stories of thirteen tragic architects. . In thirteen fascinating chapters Charlotte Van den Broeck goes in search of buildings that were fatal to their architectsarchitects who either killed themselves or are rumored to have done so. They range across time and space from a church with a twisted spire in seventeenth-century France to a theater that collapsed mid-performance in 1920s Washington DC and an eerily sinking swimming pool in the authors hometown. Drawing on a vast range of material from Hegel and Darwin to art history stories from her own life and popular culture Van den Broeck brings patterns into focus as she asks What is that strange life-or-death connection between a creation and its creator?Threaded through each story is the authors meditation on the question of suicidewhat Albert Camus called the one truly serious philosophical problemin relation to creativity and public disgrace. The result is a profoundly idiosyncratic book breaking ground in literary nonfiction as well as providing solace and consolation to anyone who has ever attempted a creative act.