Friends of the Museum

In McGowan’s ambitious, lovingly satirical send-up of the art world, her first novel since 2006’s The Duchess of Nothing, she tracks the harried stewards of a fictional New York City museum over a 24-hour period as they prepare for a swanky gala that will restore the institution’s dubious reputation for integrity and financial solvency. Dozens of characters wander in and out of the action (readers would be well-served to bookmark the dramatis personae in the front matter), but McGowan ultimately settles on nine, including Diane, the museum’s director, whose packed calendar of appointments and groveling is compounded by her fear that her husband is leaving her; Shay, chief of security, who keeps a steady and overlooked eye on the entire operation, even in the face of looming personal tragedy; and Benjamin, the newly hired film curator who has yet to live a life outside the filmed version running in his head. Guided by the ceaseless march of the clock, the narration jumps like a satellite from one character to another, presented in torrents of unattributed conversation, often overlapping and mixed with interior monologue, that takes time to get used to but eventually finds an addictive rhythm. Some readers may be put off by the seemingly directionless pile-up of personal dramas; others will revel in them, wishing for even more time with this gallery of fatally flawed people and the noble but absurd institution that brings them together.