Saint Sebastian's Abyss

<p><b>“What I wanted more than anything was to be standing beside Schmidt, in concert with Schmidt, at the foot of <em>Saint Sebastian’s Abyss</em> along with Schmidt, hands cupped to the sides of our faces, debating art, transcendence, and the glory of the apocalypse.”</b></p><p><span>Former best friends who built their careers writing about a single work of art meet after a decades-long falling-out. One of them, called to the other’s deathbed for unknown reasons by a “relatively short” nine-page email, spends his flight to Berlin reflecting on Dutch Renaissance painter Count Hugo Beckenbauer and his masterpiece, <i>Saint Sebastian’s Abyss,</i> the work that established both men as important art critics and also destroyed their relationship. A darkly comic meditation on art, obsession, and the enigmatic power of friendship, <i>Saint Sebastian’s Abyss</i> stalks the museum halls of Europe, feverishly seeking salvation, annihilation, and the meaning of belief. </span></p>