Mark Greif, author of “Against Everything,” wrote, “‘Negative Space’ is a brilliant, moving, unique, thought-provoking meditation on the artistic life, fathers and daughters, and the struggle to live life at the highest pitch in each generation.” The book has been garnering praise from reviewers. Years in the making, it’s the epitome of a labor of love, and it shows. “Negative Space” is very well written and is an easy read, despite being packed with often-wrenching emotion. I’m a fan of memoirs and biography, and Dancyger has a powerful story to tell, both about her father and herself. We root for her as she strives to put her life on more solid footing and achieve her dreams. She would wander the Lower East Side’s streets alone at night, searching for answers. Dancyger rebelled against her mother, who also battled addiction, and her teachers.

Her dad’s sudden, unexplained death left her full of rage and sadness, and she found herself on a self-destructive course. Lilly Dancyger with her new memoir, “Negative Space.” (Courtesy Lilly Dancyger)Īt the same time, Dancyger’s own story is equally compelling. “Negative Space” is like a mystery, in some ways, as we follow Dancyger’s sleuthing into Schactman’s past, searching for clues in his previous relationships, interpreting the symbolism of his art and how it mirrored what he was going through in his life. Ultimately, the process of reporting and writing the book was a way for Dancyger to heal from the grief of her father’s loss. In “Negative Space” (292 pages, Sante Fe Writers Project) Dancyger sets out to try to uncover the full story of her father and his art, to try to more fully understand the man whom she so deeply loved, yet only was able to know as a child. He died in his early 40s, right as Dancyger was entering adolescence.

He was a purist, though, and scorned commercialism.

He created provocative sculptures from found materials like animal bones, bird wings, human hair, broken glass and scrap metal. It’s also a metaphor for the absence of her father in her life.ĭancyger’s dad, Joe Schactman, was a talented and edgy visual artist in the 1980s East Village art scene. BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | The title of Lilly Dancyger’s riveting new memoir “Negative Space” refers to the empty areas in a drawing or painting.

Lilly dancyger negative space