These mysterious, interrelated stories create a portrait of the author s life, both real and imagined, as he appears in each tale variously as hero, bystander, artist, and ghost, yielding an enchanting autobiography of the imagination. Fantasy and reality collide as the book s principal characters two lovers meet, part, and reunite, time and again, at different stages in life and in landscapes both familiar and exotic. Death appears as a genial waiter in a cafe across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art; talking circus elephants console a ringmaster for his unrequited love; a young boy barters with pirates for his grandmother s soul; and as a refrigerator begins spilling mini-glaciers into a couple s East Village apartment, a voyage to Antarctica commences on an icy schooner waiting for them in Tompkins Square Park. Love, and its mystery, is at the core of these self portraits, but love also for art, for adventure, and for the passion of being alive."

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE An incomparable storyteller serves up an enchanting concoction of art, love, and longing In fifteen masterful stories, Frederic Tuten entertains questions of existential magnitude, pervasive yearning, and the creative impulse. A wealthy older woman reflects on her relationship with her drowned husband, a painter, as she awaits her own watery demise. An exhausted artist, feeling stuck, reads a book of criticism about allegory and symbolism before tossing her paintings out the window. Writing a book about the lives of artists he admires-Cezanne, Monet, Rousseau-a man imagines how each vignette could be a life lesson for his wife, the artist he perhaps admires the most. Whether set in Tuten's beloved Lower East Side, Rome's Borghese Gardens, or a French seaside resort, these stories shift seamlessly between the poignancy of memory into the logic of fairytales or dreams, demonstrating Tuten's exceptional ability to transmute his passion for art and life to the page.

"A love song to a lost New York" (New York magazine) from novelist, essayist, and critic Frederic Tuten as he recalls his personal and artistic coming-of-age in 1950s New York City, a defining period that would set him on the course to becoming a writer.Born in the Bronx to a Sicilian mother and Southern father, Frederic Tuten always dreamed of being an artist. Determined to trade his neighborhood streets for the romantic avenues of Paris, he learned to paint and draw, falling in love with the process of putting a brush to canvas and the feeling it gave him. At fifteen, he decided to leave high school and pursue the bohemian life he'd read about in books. But, before he could, he would receive an extraordinary education right in his own backyard. "A stirring portrait...and a wonderfully raw story of city boy's transformation into a writer" (Publishers Weekly), My Young Life reveals Tuten's early formative years where he would discover the kind of life he wanted to lead. As he travels downtown for classes at the Art Students League, spends afternoons reading in Union Square, and discovers the vibrant scenes of downtown galleries and Lower East Side bars, Frederic finds himself a member of a new community of artists, gathering friends, influences--and many girlfriends--along the way. Frederic Tuten has had a remarkable life, writing books, traveling around the world, acting in and creating films, and even conducting summer workshops with Paul Bowles in Tangiers. Spanning two decades and bringing us from his family's kitchen table in the Bronx to the cafes of Greenwich Village and back again, My Young Life is an intimate and enchanting portrait of an artist's coming-of-age, set against one of the most exciting creative periods of our time--"so thrilling...so precise in presenting a young man's preoccupation and occupation" (Steve Martin).

A son seeing his dying father--a radical activist--for the first time since childhood, decides to tell him the story of a French revolutionary, Jean Lambert Tallien, in a novel that moves deftly between past and present. IP.

A powerful story that explores the modern dilemma of passion versus tranquillity.

Set in Paris and New York, The Green Hour tells the story of Dominique, a brilliant art historian who has recently recovered from a bout with cancer. The novel follows Dominique from her college years to the present, unfolding a moving love story in which Dominique is torn between her passion for the idealistic and seductive Rex, who periodically disappears from her life, and her feelings for Eric, a wealthy American businessman deeply in love with her.

Woven into this romance is the equally gripping tale of Dominique's relationship with art and the cultural turmoils of our time. By portraying a character for whom love and idealism are lost, this novel hauntingly shows us the importance of pursuing both. A Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2002.

"[C]ourageous, adventurous, intelligent and highly original...moments of haunting lyrical power."—Citation for the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters

"An engaging love story, quirky, cosmopolitan, full of upliftings and downturnings..."—Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove

"A moving novel that explores the nature of love and the relationship between art and life."—Francine du Plessix Gray, author of At Home with the Marquis de Sade

"An elegant exploration of the pained and reckless happiness that shapes the life of a person...richly emotional."—Nuala O'Faolain, author of My Dream of You

"[C]uts brightly into the dark night of our troubled times. Unforgettable."—Oscar Hijuelos, author of A Simple Habana Melody

"I felt moved and involved—and above all envious. I loved this novel and could not put it down."—Steve Martin, author of Shopgirl

"[An] exceptional writer...elegant and always intelligent in his spiritual accounting."—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Splendidly subversive....Tuten whittles away at the conflicting emotions separating us from our ideal selves and shows us how little of our destinies we control."—San Francisco Chronicle

"Frederic Tuten is a valiant gifted writer whose work honors literature."—Susan Sontag

Acclaimed author Frederic Tuten boldly revives the well-loved character Tintin - the eternally youthful protagonist from Belgian artist Herge's popular comic book series, The Adventures of Tintin - and leads him into an adventure like none he has experienced before. Once again joined by Captain Haddock and his little dog Snowy, the intrepid world traveler Tintin embarks on a mysterious journey to Machu Picchu in Peru. But where danger and intrigue have met him before, this voyage brings new perils and enchantments.