The Promised Party by Jennifer Clement
Jennifer Clement follows up Widow Basquiat with another perfect time capsule
Those who have read Jennifer Clement’s Widow Basquiat will not be surprised to learn that its follow-up, The Promised Party: Kahlo, Basquiat and Me is another perfect time capsule told in fragments of intoxicating prose. A book of two halves, the memoir is split between Clement’s upbringing in the Mexico City of the late 60s and early 70s, and the burgeoning art scene of late-70s New York City that Clement stepped into at just 18.
Frida Kahlo died six years before Clement was born but left behind her house, empty and unchanged, next to which Clement would grow up. As a child, Clement whiled away the hours in the painter’s old bathtub, imagining herself in Kahlo’s place. Clement is quickly conscious of her inheritance into the rich history of Hispanic art and artists. At school are the children of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and her interest in politics blooms. By the time she is grown, she has already been suspected of murder.
Nowadays it is hard to imagine the move from Mexico City to New York City striking fear into parents like it does hers. It is a reminder of its still-recent reputation as the world’s street crime capital. But the place where she will meet Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat is about to become legend. As with her last book, Clement’s account of New York’s changing face is hugely compelling.