Part for the Hole
From page 1:
“Call me Bob. Bob B.
I rescued the National Endowment for the Arts at gunpoint.
Not a brag. And if you don't want to believe me, don’t.
I’ll push on anyway. When you have an urge to tell the truth, ignoring it can be harmful to the health…”
This is the newspaper article that inspired Peter Gould’s newest novel:
Seized Artist Says He Had to Paint a Nude
MEXICO CITY (AP) - A Mexican artist seized at gunpoint off the street says his kidnappers forced him to paint a nude portrait of a wealthy woman. Witnesses saw armed men seize Julio Parra off a street in the southern city of San Cristobal. He wasn't heard from for four days. Relatives and friends feared Parra, who was imprisoned in the 1970's for links to militant leftist groups, had been kidnapped for political reasons.
But in an interview in the newspaper La Reforma, Parra said his captors were interested in his art, not his politics. He said he was picked up off the street, covered in a cloth and driven to a "run of the mill" room...
"This is a whim," Parra quoted the kidnappers as telling him. "There is a very rich lady who likes your painting a lot. She wants you to paint her." Parra said he was given paintbrushes and forced to look through a hole in the wall at the model, who would pose nude for about an hour at a time.
PART FOR THE HOLE is a little dream about changing the world. It is a novel that I am pretty sure is true in all the ways that matter.
Kent Peterson, Tales from a Rolltop Desk
Totally compelling and fun to read. Peter has such a handle on what independent culture, art, and thinking look like.
Chuck Collins, author of Burnt by Billionaires
Available soon at your favorite indie bookstore or alternative online bookseller!