TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2015 | 7INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES. . . .

Despite the production’s stage-fillingsets, the overall impact on Saturdaywasmodest. It makes few ideologicalclaims but also, more problematic, fewemotional ones. Despite the terrors im-plied by its settings, its mood is neverpersuasively disconcerting or persuas-ivelymuch of anything. It is fluent andsensible, but that may not be enoughwhen approaching one of themost dis-orienting works in operatic history.One of the production’s greatest

strengthsmay be a weakness: Christi-an Thielemann’s conducting was per-haps too subtly colored, too easily flow-ing, too effortlessly responsive for itsown good.Mr. Thielemann’s approach toWagn-

er has unique naturalness. In the firstact, which frequently takes the form ofa kind of call-and-response betweensingers and orchestra, his answers al-ways arrived with immediacy. But likehis oddly unanxious ‘‘Parsifal’’ at theSalzburg Easter Festival two years ago,his ‘‘Tristan’’ smooths over the work’sstrangeness, its emotional extremes.Recently given the essentially new

title ofmusic director at the festival, Mr.Thielemann, rather thanMs.Wagner,was the one to bear some scattered boosat his bow. Perhaps that was a responseto hismusical choices, or perhaps to hisconservative politics or his seeminglyever-growing power here at Bayreuth.It was clearer why the soprano

Culture art music

REVUE NOIRE

PARIS

BY RACHEL DONADIO

The art practically leaps off the walls. Astriking painting of President Obama,NelsonMandela and Patrice Lumumba,the Congolese leader whowas assassin-ated in 1961. Luscious black-and-whitephotographs of 1950s night life in Léo-poldville, now Kinshasa. Whimsical wa-tercolors from the 1930s.These are among 350 works by 41

artists in ‘‘Beauté Congo,’’ an electric,eye-opening survey of art from Congofrom 1926 to 2015 at the Cartier Founda-tion here that offers a window into a dy-namic art scene not often showcased inWesternmuseums.‘‘Wewanted to create a narrative that

reintroduces these exceptional artistsinto the history of art,’’ said AndréMagnin, a boisterous Frenchman whocurated the show. He has traveled toCongo for decades, cultivating relation-ships with some of the artists featuredas well as buying work on behalf of amajor collector. ‘‘We wanted to show

the broader public exceptional worksfrom a continent where the televisiononly presents dark, disastrous imagesof war and illness,’’ he added.Mr.Magnin said the surveywas inten-

ded as a ‘‘political and historical’’ ges-ture that sought to disprove the commonmisconception that art in Africa hadskipped several generations from thetraditional works of the past to thosemade after many African countries be-came independent of their Europeancolonizers. (Belgian colonial rule inCongo ended in 1960.) Althoughmuch ofthis show is dedicated to contemporaryartists like Chéri Samba, who paintedthe image of world leaders, the earliestworks here have rarely been shown insuch numbers, and the exhibitionmakesa strong case for the continuity of richartistic production over the last century.‘‘Beauté Congo,’’ which runs through

Nov. 15, begins in the 1920s, when thehusband-and-wife painters Albert andAntoinette Lubaki and the artist knownas Djilatendo moved from decoratingtraditional huts to creating works on pa-per at the request of a Belgian colonialadministrator. TheLubakis’watercolors,often of animals or leaves, fall some-where between realism and fantasy,while Djilatendo’s geometric patternshover between traditionalism and mod-ernism.Theshowfills all of theexhibition

space at the foundation, which is housedin a glass box designed by JeanNouvel.In the late 1920s and early 1930s, work

by the Lubakis was shown in importantmuseums and galleries in Europe.Djilatendo was represented in an exhi-bition in Brussels along with Magritte.But after 1935 and a fight between curat-ors, they stopped producing and wereeventually lost to history. Mr. Magninsaid he went in search of their workafter learning about it in a book hestumbled upon in 1989 in Zaire, as thecountry was then called. (It is now theDemocratic Republic of Congo.)‘‘Beauté Congo’’ also showcases the

artists who participated between 1946and 1954 in an academy ‘‘for popular in-digenous art,’’ as the catalog puts it,started by a former FrenchNavy officerand artist, Pierre Romain-Desfossés.They include vibrant, naturalistic un-derwater scenes of fish and of birds intrees from the 1950s by the artist knownasBela,whoworked as anight guard forRomain-Desfossés before taking uppainting, which he did with his finger-tips, without a brush.

In the 1950s, the photographer JeanDepara, born in 1928, captured a mo-ment in Léopoldville, where rumba wasall the rage and ladies of the night worecocktail dresses. His images, in rich sil-ver gelatin prints, recall those by theMalian photographers Seydou Keïtaand Malick Sidibé, but unlike Mali,Congo isn’t a Muslim country, and itsnight life is racier.Various works in the show are dedic-

ated to the ‘‘Rumble in the Jungle,’’ thepolitically charged 1974 boxingmatch inKinshasa in which Muhammad Ali de-

feated George Foreman, a moment ofblack pride in a newly liberated country.These include photos and a colorful 1974painting by Moke, who worked in thepopular style and died in 2001. SteveBandoma, born in 1981, revisits thematch in his 2014 ‘‘Cassius Clay’’ series,done in papier collé with ink. ‘‘I try to goagainst the stereotypes of African

artists,’’ Mr. Bandoma said at the exhi-bition opening. ‘‘I define myself as anartist, not an African artist.’’Today,Moke’s cousinMonsengoShula,

55, a self-described autodidact, works inthe popular vein, but with an ‘‘Afrofutur-ist’’ twist. The exhibition features his2014 painting ‘‘Sooner or Later theWorldWill Change,’’ depicting African astro-nauts in outer space, with an Africanstatue at the center of their satellite.Also on view are colorful futuristic

cityscape sculptures, architecturalmodels gone wild, by the artist BodysIsek Kingelez, (‘‘Phantom City,’’ 1996)and Rigobert Nimi (‘‘The City of Stars,’’2006), who uses found material andcastoff electronics. Born in 1965, Mr.Nimi lives in Kinshasa without electric-ity, Mr. Magnin said. At the show’sopening, Mr. Nimi and other artists inthe show spoke of the challenges theyface. ‘‘For an artist to become acelebrity, he has to go to Europe,’’ Mr.Nimi said.Congo’s current government has

comeunder fire byhuman rights groupsfor its repression of dissent, andmost of

BAYREUTH, GERMANY

BY ZACHARYWOOLFE

It’s the season of re-evaluatingwell-loved characterswe thoughtwe knew.First Atticus Finch, a saintlywarrior forracial justice inHarper Lee’s ‘‘ToKill aMockingbird,’’ was revealed as a patron-izing bigot inMs. Lee’s newly published

companion novel, ‘‘Go Set aWatchman.’’Now the revisionists have come for

KingMarke. In a new production ofWagner’s ‘‘Tristan und Isolde’’ thatopened the Bayreuth Festival on Satur-day, the thoughtful, melancholy king ofthe opera’s libretto, saddened byTristan’s betrayal, is depicted as a bru-tal, unfeeling tyrant. At the end, ratherthan blessing the dead bodies of Tristanand Isolde, asWagner indicated, Markedrags Isolde— here verymuch alive—away, still insisting on claiming thebride Tristan stole from him.That is not the only intervention by

the production’s director, KatharinaWagner, who has led the festival since2008 with another of the composer’sgreat-granddaughters, her half sister,EvaWagner-Pasquier. This ‘‘Tristan’’abjuresmagic: The title characters, inan agonizedmixture of lust and guiltfrom the start, ecstatically pour out the

famous love potion rather than drink-ing it, taking radical responsibility fortheir actions.The second act is not the lovers’ se-

cluded summer idyll but a fleeting unionin a dystopian prison yard intowhichMarke’s thugs have thrown them to bewatched over by guards and pursued byharsh floodlights. This is a post-Stasi,post-Snowden ‘‘Tristan,’’ or perhaps itshows that the composer anticipatedwhat we have tended to consider a re-cent phenomenon: the death of privacy— even, in this production, in death.Ms.Wagner hasmade the opera a ver-

itable taxonomy of gloomy nightmares.The first act, set aboard Tristan’s ship, isa labyrinth of shadowy staircases tonowhere, a combination ofM.C. EscherandPiranesi. The loomingwalls and re-tracting cylindrical cages of the secondact lead to a third act permeated by fogand dottedwith a hall-of-mirrors profu-sion of Isoldes— some living, some col-lapsingmannequins— conjured byTristan in hismadness.At this point, it is newswhen a produc-

tion at Bayreuth, known for its cadre offierce traditionalists, does not get booed,and on Saturday,Ms.Wagner and herdesign team seemed to receive onlycheers. That speaks to the sobriety of thestaging, and perhaps to some relief thatthis director has not offered a repeat ofhermessy ‘‘DieMeistersinger vonNürnberg,’’ first performed here in 2007.

With anonymously contemporary dé-cor (by Frank Philipp Schlössmann andMatthias Lippert) and timeless cos-tumes (by ThomasKaiser) that are si-multaneouslymedieval and futuristic,this ‘‘Tristan’’ is cleaner than ‘‘DieMeistersinger,’’ its divergences fromthe original text carefully considered.No, there is not the ‘‘tentlike cabin’’ thatthe libretto gives Isolde aboard Tristan’sship, but that tent does find its way intoMs.Wagner’s second act, when the lov-ers cobble together amakeshift shelter

out of some fabric to hide from the glareof the prison-yard lights.Any restive fundamentalists in the

audiencemight also have been calmedby seeming homages to the festival’spast, in a summerwhenWagner’s homehere, the VillaWahnfried, is having itsreopening as an expandedmuseum.The third act of ‘‘Tristan,’’ its playingspaces defined by soft fields of light (de-signed by Reinhard Traub) and punctu-ated by floating pyramids that keep ap-pearing and vanishing, evokes the ab-stract ‘‘NewBayreuth’’ aesthetic of the1950s and ’60s.

ShowcasingCongolese art

the works in the exhibition shy from di-rect political confrontation. Mr. Samba,one of Congo’s best-knownartists, veersinto the political with a work depicting achild soldier with the words, ‘‘I am forpeace, that is why I like weapons.’’‘‘Beauté Congo’’ has received posi-

tive reviews in France since it openedon July 11, but there has also been somecriticism. Pascale Obolo, a filmmakerand the editor of Afrikadaa, a culturaljournal, found fault with the ‘‘very neo-colonial and paternalistic’’ attitude ofMr. Magnin and other European curat-orswho bring African art into Europeanmuseums. ‘‘We’re in a world of global-ization,’’ she said. ‘‘We don’t needFrance or Belgium in order to show artfromAfrica.’’Some questioned why the only wom-

an included in the exhibition was Ant-oinette Lubaki, from the 1930s, and why,for instance, the show did not includethe prizewinning artist MichèleMagema, whowas born in Congo in 1977and has been exhibited widely inEurope. ‘‘I’m sure they exist,’’ Mr.Magnin said of female artists in Congo.‘‘Unfortunately, I haven’t met them.’’Others questioned the possible com-

mercial implications of the show, sinceMr. Magnin acquired work by some ofthe artists featured here in building upCONGO, PAGE 8

In Paris, ‘Beauté Congo’features 90 years of workrarely seen outside Africa

EvelynHerlitzius, announced lastmonth as a replacement for AnjaKampe as Isolde, got her own catcalls:Her voice is angular rather than luxuri-ant, though her sound has clarity, andshe acts with febrile focus. She was theodd woman out in a cast with consider-able vocal glamour. The bass-baritoneIain Paterson was a hearty Kurwenal,and themezzo-soprano ChristaMayerfloated Brangäne’s offstage warningsto the lovers in Act II with hauntingpoise.

Stephen Gould actually sang Tristanwith a tonemellower andmore lyricalthan the bellowing of many other ten-ors in this impossible role. Best of allwas Georg Zeppenfeld as KingMarke,his bass rich, his malignancy potentlyunderplayed. Hemade the production’smost surprising revision entirely con-vincing.

‘‘Tristan und Isolde’’ runs through Aug.23 at the Bayreuth Festival, which endson Aug. 28; bayreuther-festspiele.de.

ENRICO NAWRATH/FESTSPIELE BAYREUTH, VIA EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

Georg Zeppenfeld, left, and Stephen Gould during a rehearsal of ‘‘Tristan und Isolde.’’

Works from theFondation Cartiershow, clockwisefrom above: an un-titled photo by JeanDepara; ‘‘Sooneror Later theWorldWill Change,’’ a2014 painting byMonsengo Shula;an untitled water-color from 1929 byAlbert Lubaki; anuntitled 1974 paint-ing byMoke of theAli-Foreman‘‘Rumble in theJungle’’ boxingbout in Kinshasa.

The exhibition offers a windowinto a dynamic art scene.

FLORIAN KLEINEFEN

FABRICE GOUSSET/CORNETTE DE SAINT CYR, PARIS

ANDRÉ MORIN

OPERA REVIEW

Cheers, but small impact, for revisionist ‘Tristan’

The new production makesfew ideological claims, butalso, more problematic, fewemotional ones.

INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES8 | TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2015. . . .

culture music art books

ABIGAIL GOH

The Loved Ones.By Mary-Beth Ms. Hughes.286 pages. Atlantic Monthly Press. $26.

BY THOMAS BELLER

‘‘Only a flurry. A thin blanket of white,something to take the graymounds ofsnow andmake themnew.’’ So beginsMary-BethHughes’s third book, ‘‘TheLovedOnes.’’ It is 1969, and JeanDevlinis leaving her house on the Jersey Shore

in ‘‘theValiantwagon she used for er-rands.’’ The departure is fraught, partlybecause the fraughtness of departure isone of the book’s themes, and partly be-cause of the nature of the driveway.‘‘Jeanmade the reverse up the steepcurve, then backed into the roadsidepull-off wheremost delivery driverschickened out and parked. They’d ratherhand carry a refrigerator thanmake theplunge, but Jean could do it blindfolded.’’People back out of driveways all the

time. As long as no one gets smashedinto, it is banal enough. ButMs. Hughesdoes not do banal, and I often thoughtof this maneuver— I suppose you couldcall it a detail of the house’s design— asI read her book. It is emblematic ofMs.Hughes’s creative DNA: counterintuit-ive and hard to follow, but producing in-teresting effects.From the turnout Jean can see the

house below, which has a name, Goose-neck Cove, a pretty cottage nestled be-side the Navesink River. Her thoughtsfollow her gaze, both up and down; sherecalls the ruined state of the housewhen she and her father first saw it,shortly after he won it in a poker game.She has resuscitated it, brought it toheights of not just beauty but glory.‘‘Every summer for the last five Jean’squiet little Cape hadmade the design-er’s showcase.’’So Jean is not only an appreciator of

beauty, she is a creator, not exactly an

artist but that more nebulous, sinistertalent, a ‘‘stylist.’’ One of the uppercaseironies of this book is the difficulty,even or among people with a talent formaking things look pretty, of makinglife pretty. Life, fate— andmore specif-ically Jean’s adolescent daughter, Lily— all resist it.One hearsmany names in this book:

Lionel, Billy, Sheldon, Sister Charitina,FatherMulroney,Margaret, Doris,Cubbie, Mimi, Nick, Clyde Boll, IrvingSlater, Vivienne Vimcreste, someonenamed Teedle (who shovels snow).Who are these people? Some are negli-gible and never returned to. Others,central. It’s like being at a party whereyou know no one, and where everyoneis talking about people you have neverheard of, in amanner so oblivious tooutsiders it feels hostile. Perhapsmyearly agitation with ‘‘The Loved Ones’’—which culminated in leaving the bookin a city I had flown to, unaware until Iwas boarding the plane home—wasanimated in part by self-pity. There is apoint beyondwhich inmedias res is nolonger a style but an act of reproach, ifnot hostility, fromwriter to reader. Forthe first 50 pages the book put me in abadmood.As it happens, the coffee shop where

I left the book was called Cafe Grumpy.A similar sense of echo begins to estab-lish itself in ‘‘The Loved Ones.’’ In theflurry of names and facts there turnsout to bemuch that is significant; it’sjust that youmust enter a kind ofdream state and accept that you cannotinfer what is or is not important, butmust absorb it all and let it do its work.Perhaps it’s a clever pun that in a

book at least partly about design, thewriter’s method should yield its patternso slowly. But like a language you areexasperated by and then begin to un-derstand, the design is there. Thewords of that first line, for example—the ‘‘thin blanket of white’’ that covers‘‘graymounds’’ to ‘‘make them new’’

— seemmerely decorative, while beingabout decoration itself, yet their reson-ance increases as we learn that the plotis driven by the businessmachinationsof a bunch of suave, debonair, gangster-ish businessmen (Jean’s husband,Nick, among them)whose product ismakeup. The essential gestures ofmakeup, the product and themotiva-tions for its use, are both well summar-ized by the book’s first words.As for those names, one slowly begins

to recognize some and understandwhois important. Chief among these is Cub-bie, Jean andNick’s son, Lily’s youngerbrother, who became ill and diedwhenhewas very young. The surface plot iskicked into actionwhenNick gets a bigjob at a cosmetics company that re-quires him tomove to London. Jean doesnotwant to go. Graduallywe realize thisresistance is due in part to her attach-ment to the house, but also to the life thattranspired there before Cubbie’s death.Ms. Hughes’s prose is elusive, allus-

ive, artful, intriguing and infuriating.There are no quotationmarks; a char-acter’s speech blends into the text; thepoints of view shift often. Line to line,there is no guidance for the reader. Ms.Hughes likes to start her scenes withclose attention tominor characters, andwhenwe arrive at last at the centralcharacters’ points of view, we don’t seewhat they see somuch as occupy theircluttered, confused thoughts, with onlynow and then a bit of empirical evi-dence edging in. Many of the gesturesdescribed aremental ones. Thus, inlines that would be impressive if theyweren’t so confusing, we get a portraitof Jean’s stepmother, Doris, putting onjewelry: ‘‘All of her necklaces, good andtrash, had been adjusted once she’dhealed. All of her dresses taken in andthen discarded altogether. She was adifferent woman since the surgery;everyone said so.’’The nature of the surgery we are left

to guess at, while that ‘‘everyone’’ indi-

cates the partygoing, ornamentedmi-lieu. It’s as thoughMs. Hughes has de-cided tomake her prose inhabit theshortcomings of her characters, whoare burnished and function in a haze ofanxious self-regard. I realize thismakes them sound very contemporary— but one of the things I like about thebook, which is set over a few seasons in1969-71, is the way it evokesmusty, out-dated visions of success, definitions ofthe good life that now feel antique. Ms.Hughes is very good at portrayingmaleself-regard as grandiose to the point of

the holdings of Jean Pigozzi, a business-man, with what Mr. Magnin said wasthe largest collection of African contem-porary art in the world, with 12,000works.Hervé Chandès, the director of the

Cartier Foundation, said he wasn’t con-cerned. ‘‘If André hadn’t been there, Icouldn’t have done the exhibition,’’ hesaid. ‘‘I needed someone with theknowledge of the artistic life of Congo.’’Back at the exhibition opening, some

of the artists thanked Mr. Magnin forchampioning them. ‘‘He helpedme a lotafter he said, ‘Find your style,’ ’’ said the

artist JP Mika, standing by one of hispaintings, which also features Mr.Obama andMr.Mandela.In this one, each man is split in half,

depicted simultaneously as his youngerand older self. Mr. Shula, who paintedthe African astronauts, said he hopedbeing included in the show would driveup prices for his work. ‘‘Of course,’’ hesaid.Nearby were rich color photographs

from the 2011 series ‘‘A View,’’ by KiripiKatembo, born in 1979. They show im-ages of Kinshasa reflected in itspuddles. A world turned upside down,saturated with grit and color and love.

LOS ANGELES

BY JON PARELES

Something was not right. Wirelessmi-crophone in hand,Miguel was circlingthe floor of Club Nokia here during thesoundcheck for a concert to preview hisnew album, ‘‘Wildheart.’’ It was one ofthe warm-up shows before his firstheadlining tour, where he’ll be playingmuch larger clubs like Terminal 5 thiscoming Sunday in NewYork City.The bandwas charging through

rocked-up versions of old and new songs,andMiguelwantedmore punch from thedrums.He consultedwith the soundmanandwent back to singing butwasn’t sat-isfied. Eventually an idea struck. Thedrummer, RJKelly, was performing be-hind a plexiglass barrier, which providesa cleaner sound on a small stage. Downcame the barrier; the drums finallyboomed. ‘‘It soundsway better,’’Miguelsaid, relieved.He cursed the idea ofsounding ‘‘clean’’ with a four-letterwordand a smile and added: ‘‘I don’t wantperfection. It’s gotta feel right.’’Miguel’s decision to follow his in-

stincts has led him to shake up both hismessage and his sound. Now 29, Miguelhas been amusician since he was ateenager. He established his craftsman-

ship both as a songwriter matching in-telligent wordplay to sweeping tunesand as a genuinely soulful singer whodoesn’t need digital assistance. ‘‘If Iever pulled up an Auto-Tune plug-in in aMiguel session, he’d shoot me,’’ saidOakwud, one ofMiguel’s producers.‘‘He’s interested in baring his honestsoul to the listener.’’Miguel has been a songwriter, and

sometimes a duet partner, for Usher,Beyoncé, Alicia Keys and Ludacris. Hisvoice is front and center inMariahCarey’s ‘‘#Beautiful,’’ a million-sellingsong he wrote withMs. Carey and oth-ers. His own ‘‘Adorn,’’ theMarvinGaye-tinged single from his 2012 album‘‘Kaleidoscope Dream,’’ was themost-played song on R&B/hip-hop stationsfor sixmonths, soldmore than amillioncopies and won a Grammy as best R&Bsong. Yet on his first two albums, in2010 and 2012, Miguel largely presentedhimself as a typical R&B figure: a lov-ermanworking a spectrum from sweetnothings to raunchy come-ons.With ‘‘Wildheart,’’ Miguel claims his

ownmore specific identity: as a Califor-nia native of mixed ancestry andboundless aspiration, and as a song-writer who finds his entire complicatedhometown—Hollywood, beaches, thesuburbs, the ghettos— both aroundandwithin himself. Themusic also tra-versesmodern Los Angeles, invokinghard rock, gangsta funk and a whiff ofsurf-rock along withmultiple schools ofR&B.Wheremodern R&B is a largely elec-

tronic domain, on ‘‘Wildheart’’ Migueloften cranks up electric guitars. ‘‘I’vealways loved to write on the guitar butnever had the confidence to play onmyown records. I playedmore on this al-bum—not that it’s any good, but it’sstill me,’’ Miguel said before the sound-check over lunch in the Los Angelesbeachside neighborhood of Venice, justnorth of where he lives in Playa del Rey.Casually but sharply dressed in a grayhoodie, a T-shirt, assorted neck chains,black pants and studded boots, he waseasygoing, impeccably polite and brim-

ming with energy, always holding thegaze of a conversation partner whetherit was an interviewer or the waitresswho hadmet him at a party somewherealong the coast.‘‘Wildheart’’ entered the Billboard

200 album chart at No. 2 when it was re-leased on June 29 and has lingered inthe Top 10, though it’s not propelled bya hit single. ‘‘Coffee,’’ a romantic morn-ing-after ballad, remains in the bottomhalf of the Billboard Hot 100.‘‘It’s definitely a departure from

what he’s done before, and it’s very dif-ferent fromwhat you’re hearing rightnow on radio,’’ said DocWynter, the se-

nior vice president for urban program-ming at the iHeartRadio network andthe program director of the hip-hop/R&B station Real 92.3 (KRRL-FM) inLos Angeles, which presented one ofMiguel’s preview shows here. ‘‘Hereally is amusician, and he’s aboutwhatever his experience is, as opposedtomaking a record for radio, which I re-spect. It’s definitely risky, but I thinkhe’s got a lot of confidence.’’Indeed. ‘‘None of my singles have

ever sounded like anything else thatwas on the radio, so I’m used to not get-ting the initial ‘Oh, yes!’ right away,’’Miguel said. ‘‘Mymusic has alwaysbeen something that just grows onpeople and stays around. It’s kind ofcool, the notion that maybe not every-thing is so obvious, but there’s some-thing in there that’s real and lasting.’’Miguel’s full name isMiguel Jontel

Pimentel. He’s the son of aMexican-American father, who was a teacher,and an African-Americanmother whoworked as a clerk for an architecturefirm. ‘‘I really am Los Angeles,’’ hesaid. ‘‘Not only in the sense that I’mMexican and black, and they’re thedominating ethnicities in this city, butin the energy of Los Angeles, and howeverywhere you go there’s this weirdjuxtaposition of hope and desperation.And that’s my life, that’s who I am.‘‘I wanted the album to feel like twi-

light, like dusk, right when the sun isgoing down andwhen the colors in thesky just seem themost vibrant and it’sthemost beautiful. But also all the vice

comedy but also somehowmoving.Here, for instance, is Doris’s hus-

band, Clyde, enjoying his bourbon untilDoris surprises him: ‘‘His mouthmadea little bowl and the aroma snuck upthrough his sinuses and pleasantlystewed his brain with thoughts of suc-cess, all that had been his, that still was,that he’d grabbed frommisfortune andworse. Everything he’d done andmadeandwas, and a smile whispered acrosshis black-brown eyes, a wisp of joy, un-til there she was standing right in frontof him. He’d swallow and say,What thehell? I thought you’d gone.’’This same theme— theman’s fantasy

interrupted by the reality of hiswife— ishandledwithmore overt comedy in ashort story inMs.Hughes’s collection,‘‘DoubleHappiness,’’ inwhich the

BOOK REVIEW

Miguel starts claiminghis own identity withnew album, ‘Wildheart’

heroine’smother ismarried to an aspir-ing novelist towhose ambitions themother has become devoted. The step-father/novelist ends up being awife ab-user. On theway to this discovery thenarrator takes a peek at one of hismanuscripts and sees that it seems tofeaturewomenwith ‘‘surprisingly activenipples, and insatiable appetites for verystraight-ahead penis-worshiping sexacts.’’ In ‘‘The LovedOnes,’’ it is Nick,Jean’s husband, who stands in for thatfailed, wife-abusing, active-nipple-writ-ing novelist. He is attractive and libidin-al, and Jean speaks of himwith lustrous,lustful admiration.We do not trust him.Every now and thenMs. Hughes re-

minds us thatmakeup is both a totalfantasy ofmarketing and a thing pro-duced in factories. A character willerupt in stream-of-consciousness in-spiration for a new blush (‘‘MelonFelony’’) or fragrance (‘‘My FeloniousHeart’’). Market research is done, inpart, by executives loitering in depart-ment stores; when the company presi-dent spots one ideal customer at Har-rods, the woman turns out to be Jean.This head honcho is an irascible, impul-sive tycoon namedBilly; he is sur-rounded by henchmen and acolyteswhomove rapidly in and out of favor.One of the first pleasures I gleanedfrom this book, through the thicket of itsmethods, was the comic juxtaposition ofthese gangsterish figures againstMs.Hughes’s otherwise dreamy lyricism.At one point, Billy erupts into aminortantrum directedmostly at Nick:‘‘You’re a timewaster, Devlin. You’repretty and you’re smart, but tell yourbrother I’d like what he promised some-time soon.We clear?Now, let’s get . . .out of the car. And Irving, try not to looklike you ate the goldfinch. Because be-lieveme, you did not.’’It’s as thoughMickey Spillane

sneaked into VirginiaWoolf’s study toadd some dialogue.The big disadvantage, from Jean’s

Ms. Hughes’s prose is elusive,allusive, artful, intriguing andinfuriating.

A concealed attraction: The obscure places betweenmen and women

‘‘I wanted the album to feellike twilight, like dusk, rightwhen the sun is going downand when the colors in the skyjust seem the most vibrant.’’

CONGO, FROM PAGE 7

Showcasing 90 yearsof Congo’s dynamic art

Two sides to every song

ANDRÉ MORIN

‘‘Yes, One Must Think,’’ a 2014 painting by Chéri Samba.