Book Review – So You WantTo Own An Art Gallery By Lee Benson

I picked this up at a book signing after talking to the author…

An art gallery is serious business…isn’t it? Not when it involves manic artists and predatory female staff it isn’t.
“The funniest and sexiest of debut novels”

This is a collection of anecdotes rather than short stories, taken from the authors time running an art gallery, in person Lee Benson is charming and witty, something you do get a glance of in his book but I have always promised to be totally honest in these reviews and this book does have a few issues.

The first one being the subject matter, if you have never been a part of the art world you may find some of the characters unbelievable, let me just tell you having attended art college after school for just over a year, these people really do exist,. I am aware every walk of life has its own colourful characters, but there is something about the art world which allows them full rein to express their personality in all its multicoloured facets.

The second issue is that the book is a collection of anecdotes rather than stories, so although occasionally you get a brief set up or a concluding comment you are not going to get to know what happened to the people you meet long term, they appear and are gone again if the fluttering of a few pages.

There is a part of me that wishes the author had written a fictional story about an art gallery owner, weaving a few of these tales together then throughout a storyline that gives us a deeper insight to some of the characters and then he could have told the other tales as was to engage the audience.

Does this mean the book is bad? No, it just means I believe it cold have been so much more, a view, which like art, is subjective., if you want a book you can pick up read a page and drop again then this would work, it is interesting and amusing but it needs more context especially for the non art world people.

I will round this up for Goodreads/Amazon but I am giving this 3.5 stars out of five, I just hope the author forgives me when I next run across him at a signing.