Maker of Saints Book

Bird Kincaid can't sleep. She is plagued by nightmares - vivid images of Alex Decatur falling through the air. One month after she witnesses Alex, her closest friend, plunge eight stories to her death, Bird's grief has transformed into obsession. In adjoining apartments on a boisterous, vibrant New York City block, the two young black women, Bird a radio engineer and onetime painter, and Alex a beautiful performance artist, had built an intense and unique friendship, their lives intertwined by shared space, history, friends and occasionally lovers, and a passion for art. Alex's death shatters the core of Bird's existence, compelling her to search for comfort and answers amidst the disparate strands of her friend's quixotic life - a life sometimes glamorous, sometimes painful, sometimes reckless. Was Alex's death really a suicide? Her lover, a white art critic, was never charged with a crime, but Bird is increasingly convinced that he murdered her friend. Desperate for evidence, Bird locates a bizarre series of videotapes among Alex's belongings, in which she talks about her personal life, her work, and her turbulent relationship with her lover. At first reluctantly but soon fervidly watching the tapes, Bird discovers both startling secrets and blatant lies as she is drawn back into their carefree vagabond past and across mythic boundaries in the dangerous present. In the novel's intensely dramatic finale, Bird must confront her own long-hidden demons and test her powers as an artist and a survivor.

Publishers Weekly

Clearly based on the 1985 death of N.Y.C. artist Ana Mendieta (for which her husband, sculptor Carl Andre, was widely deemed responsible although he was never convicted), Davis's new novel is a riveting crime story that enters some of the darker corners of the artistic soul. When beautiful performance artist Alex Decatur plunges to her death from her Manhattan apartment, her best friend, Cynthia "Bird" Kincaid, a young African American sound engineer and former painter, struggles to track down the killer. Years earlier, Alex "gave birth to Bird the artist simply by being the first person to look at her paintings and see them as art." Yet, it was Alex's white lover, art critic Frank Burton, who killed Bird's creative spark with a savage review. Because she overheard a violent argument between the couple just before Alex's death, Bird thinks that Frank killed Alex. The police, however, have ruled the incident a probable suicide. When Bird begins to catalogue Alex's work, she discovers the hidden life of her alluring friend. Then Bird is attacked at home by a masked intruder and seriously injured. With the help of a friend and a young married banker with whom she is having an affair, Bird uncovers a motive for murder. Stunned by the revelations, including the fact that Alex had appropriated some of Bird's experiences as her own, Bird sets a trap for Frank that propels the novel toward a dramatic conclusion. In the end, she must not only risk her life but also confront the demons that have bottled up her powers as an artist. Along the way, Davis (1959) reveals truths about what it takes to be an African-American artist in the city, and her narrative pulses with a multiethnic chorus of lively urban voices. (Oct.)