Chelsea Martin in Conversation With Kimberly King Parsons
Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland"A portrait of the artist as a work-in-progress" (Sharma Shields), Chelsea Martin’s hilarious and incisive coming-of-age novel about an art student from a poor family struggling to find her place in a new social class of rich, well-connected peers is perfect for fans of Elif Batuman’s The Idiot and Weike Wang’s Chemistry. At her San Francisco art school, Joey enrolls in a film elective that requires her to complete what seems like a straightforward assignment: create a self-portrait. Joey inexplicably decides to remake Wes Anderson’s Rushmore despite having never seen the movie. As Martin’s Tell Me I’m An Artist (Soft Skull) unfolds over the course of the semester, the assignment hangs over her as she struggles to exist in a well-heeled world that is hugely…