Exhibitionist - by Peter Mendelsund (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From acclaimed designer and novelist Peter Mendelsund, a deeply personal reflection on depression and the redemptive power of art, interspersed with 100 original paintings

In the early days of the pandemic, Peter Mendelsund and his family traveled up to a secluded New Hampshire farmhouse to weather the chaos. There began his journey through a crippling and seemingly intractable depression--which differed in degree but not in kind from episodes that have recurred periodically throughout his life--that brought him to the brink of suicide.

Relief came from an unlikely source: painting, something Peter had never contemplated doing before. And yet it became the thing that may very well have saved his life. Bleakly funny, profoundly moving, and--against all odds--truly inspiring, Exhibitionist is not just an account of a mind thinking through its own suffering in real-time, and of the author's reckoning with his father's tortured legacy; it's also the story of the birth of an artist, and a portrait of an artist at work.

Review Quotes

"Novelist and graphic designer Mendelsund blends memoir and visual art in this striking account . . . In short, percussive micro-chapters ("Unpacked. Searched the property. Sat on the porch steps"), he captures both the drudgery of his condition and the ways art helped alleviate it . . . Witty, inspiring, and endearingly unpolished, this chronicle of a creative mind learning to heal itself will enchant artists of all stripes." --Publishers Weekly

"With Exhibitionist, Peter Mendelsund paints a vivid and unique portrait of isolation, sometimes with words, sometimes with acrylics, always with warmth." --Sloane Crosley, author of Grief Is for People

"We seldom know what is really going on with people behind the scenes, or the hidden burdens they carry. Mendelsund lifts the curtain in this beautiful, painfully touching chronicle of depression and painting his way through." --Richard McGuire, author of Here

"Exhibitionist is an immersive memoir of depression and art. It is utterly mesmerizing--a work that is at once devastating and hopeful, harrowing and beautiful, revealing and mysterious, yet always searing." --David Epstein, No. 1 bestselling author of Range

About the Author

PETER MENDELSUND is the author of seven books, including the novels Weepers, The Delivery, and Same Same and the nonfiction works What We See When We Read, Cover, and The Look of the Book. He is also a renowned cover designer and the creative director of The Atlantic.