The Face of a Naked Lady: An Omaha Family Mystery

Synopsis

A son uncovers the remarkable secret life of his midwestern father—and his Nebraska city—in this &“beguiling [and] deeply unusual&” memoir (The Boston Sunday Globe). Nick Rips&’s son had always known him as a conservative midwesterner, dedicated, affable, bland to the point of invisibility. Upon his father&’s death, however, Michael Rips returned to his Omaha family home to discover a hidden portfolio of paintings—all done by his father, all of a naked black woman. His solid Republican father, Michael would eventually discover, had an interesting past and another side to his personality. Raised in one of Omaha&’s most famous brothels, Nick had insisted on hiring a collection of social misfits to work in his eyeglass factory—and had once showed up in his son&’s high school principal&’s office in pajamas. As Michael searches for the woman in the paintings, he meets, among others, an African American detective who swears by the clairvoyant powers of a Mind Machine, a homeless man with five million dollars in the bank, an underwear auctioneer, and a flying trapeze artist on her last sublime ride. Ultimately, in his investigations through his Nebraska hometown, he will discover the mysterious woman—as well as a father he never knew, and a profound sense that all around us the miraculous permeates the everyday. &“Writing with similar pain and urgency as Nick Flynn in Another Bullshit Night in Suck City and August Kleinzahler in Cutty, One Rock, Rips&’ terse, flinty syntax perfectly embodies the hard-boiled nature of this nearly surreal true-life tale.&” —Booklist &“An amazing, beautiful book—a study of a certain family in a certain place at a certain time that gives us, in stunning shorthand, the reality of America.&” —Joan Didion, author of The White Album &“At once a lyrical family portrait, a philosophical inquiry, a bittersweet evocation of a lost time and place, and an enthralling domestic mystery.&” —Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief &“Quirky, funny, moving, and immensely readable . . . a brilliantly observed story about place, family, and race in America.&” —Randall Kennedy

Copyright:

2006

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

208 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780547975061

Related ISBNs:

9780618711895

Publisher:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Date of Addition:

12/17/24

Copyrighted By:

status in your country.

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.