Saint Sebastians Abyss Mark Haber by Mark Haber 9781566896443, 1566896444 instant download after payment.

"What I wanted more than anything was to be standing beside Schmidt, in concert with Schmidt, at the foot of Saint Sebastian's Abyss along with Schmidt, hands cupped to the sides of our faces, debating art, transcendence and the glory of the apocalypse."

“Haber relishes opportunities to tip sacred cows... Beckenbauer and his painting are the work of Haber’s imagination. But his critics feel so richly realized that one could be excused for Googling ‘Saint Sebastian’s Abyss’ to glimpse at a canvas that only exists in the book.”   -  Andrew Dansby, Houston Chronicle

Former best friends who built their careers writing about a single work of art meet after a decades-long falling-out. One of them, called to the other's deathbed for unknown reasons by a "relatively short" nine-page email, spends his flight to Berlin reflecting on Dutch Renaissance painter Count Hugo Beckenbauer and his masterpiece, Saint Sebastian's Abyss, the work that established both men as important art critics and also destroyed their relationship. 

“Haber’s comic novel tracks the friendship, falling-out and sort-of reconciliation of two critics who have devoted their careers to a 16th-century painting of St. Sebastian that both find sublime - though for different reasons. What is it about art that can move us to extremes? This absurdist take on very serious people hazards a guess.”  -  The New York Times

A darkly comic meditation on art, obsession, and the enigmatic power of friendship, Saint Sebastian's Abyss stalks the museum halls of Europe, feverishly seeking salvation, annihilation, and the meaning of belief.