Performance artist Anna Magdalena splays her audience open and leaves them begging for more. More life. More freedom. More imagination. By redefining family, history, myth, time and identity, she prompts readers to take action and forge a life of extraordinary beauty. 

Anna Magdalena is a contemporary novel about the power of art, love and imagination in its many forms. Reade Bordeaux, a forty-year-old Seattle plumber, married to Sgt. Becky Smith, is smitten with Anna Magdalena, a New York City performance artist retreated to Willapa, a forgotten Victorian town on the Washington coast. With a snap of her fingers, they land in the New York art world with her acquired family: Saxton, her ex-lover; Lulu, his mother; and Lulu’s partner, Kermit Fleur, an old master dealer who takes Reade under his wing. Honey Dearborn and her son Frank, Reade’s prickly neighbor in Willapa, drive the story with mischief, mystery and good fortune even after their death. But Sgt. Becky Smith has some tricks of her own. While Anna Magdalena provokes audiences with disappearing acts, vows, secrets, and outrageous art pieces that take place on NYC roof tops and beds, Becky pulls a fast one. The whole family rallies around Reade and he is awed as Anna Magdalena clicks her heels.