Lives of the Artist

Throughout this collection, Dennis Vannatta distills art and storytelling into their core matter—the human comedy. Vannatta also peppers in his own authorial persona, with anachronistic forays into the Vietnam War, pushing the envelop of storytelling one step further to encompass the entire collection. The stories themselves run from the first cave artist and cave storyteller (who must tell a captivating tale or be killed), through a modern aluminum siding salesman obsessing over an art historian and winding up trapped on an academic panel discussing the Mona Lisa. This salesman, too, must weave a story before the academic panel or lose—not his life certainly, but all self-respect. Both caveman and salesman inject emotion into their stories to find redemption. Just so, Vannatta’s persona injects Vietnam throughout this collection as if to say that story-telling can heal even the grossest of wounds.