Art Market Monitor

It’s the silly season in the news business. That’s the only explanation for the random and rambling vignette in the New York Times today that visits with writer Mona Simpson. Simpson just happened to be passing through New York. And she’s got a book coming out next week. Though you would hardly be able to tell from the story which, instead, focuses on the minutiae of Simpson’s life, like her book group:

In Los Angeles, the hometown of the movies, and a place not known to be crawling with literary cognoscenti, Ms. Simpson said she was nonetheless friendly with lots of people who write books, as well as playwrights and screenwriters. A bunch of them are in a close-knit book group together. It occasionally meets at Ms. Simpson’s Craftsman-style house near the beach. One of the members, Ms. Simpson said, is Michael Govan, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Mr. Govan keeps the museum open late most days, and she recently went to see what that was like. “It was empty,” she said. “There was no one there, which also made it kind of great.”

Mona Simpson Writes for Crowds and Avoids Them (New York Times)

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