Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. A funny thing happens when you discover

an artist that becomes your artist, you know, someone you just obsess over and can't stop

thinking about. And I'm using the word artist here very loosely, you know, it could be a writer,

musician, painter, whatever. But it's almost as if your brain collapses and then

reassembles itself around this one person's work. And that's what I find so charming about the

protagonist of today's novel, who is doing her thesis on an artist, but then stumbles upon a different

artist who becomes, you know, the one. And she dives into the work

with the fervor of, well, you know, the kind of person who would be doing a thesis on an artist anyway.

The book is Anita Demonte laughs last by Sochiel Gonzalez, who talked to NPR Scott Simon

about the power of art and obsession and marriage.

After the break.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get

your podcasts. Rakel Toro was working on her summer fellowship at the prestigious Rhode Island

School of Design, doing her thesis on the feigned minimalist sculptor Jack

Martin, who's rich, well-born, and well-regarded. But something is stirred within her as she learns

what her professors don't teach about Jack Martin, the death decades earlier of his wife, the land and body

artist, Anita DeMonte, after a tragic and

spectacular, 33-story fall from the couple's Manhattan apartment. Did Nita Demante slip through a window

or was it something else? And was her art overlooked in the shadow of her husbands? Anita Demonteonte Laph's Last is the latest novel from Sochil Gonzalez,

...