The enigma behind the death and/or disappearance of Sean Dorian Knight (1969-2001) and the artist’s brief and mysterious rise to fame is not one to be found in the history books. As a matter of fact, most contemporary critics will disavow he ever existed and minimize the impact of his posthumous influence as due to other factors. In like manner, all artworks previously attributed to him have either been destroyed, secretly purchased by the U.S. Government, or hidden by anonymous collectors until the controversy surrounding his oeuvre has passed.

But Dorian Knight’s greatest art was his life, and securing his rightful place at the apex of the history of Modern art is the daring proposition of the book, American Renaissance.   An existential tour de force whose sweeping poetic rendition of our contemporary history captures the spirit of art’s evolution from its Paleolithic beginnings all the way to the late 20th century. 

At once achieving a literary tone reminiscent of works as distinct as “The Sympathizer” (the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction) or Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History,” American Renaissance enters the literary arena as an upmarket “Supernatural-spy-thriller.” A civilizational challenge to the end of art history that is both a hilarious dive into religion, parody, and politics with a philosophical bent as well as an epic tale of Americans in Paris that may be enjoyed and savored as three separate books or one unified masterwork of unusual inspiration.  

Perhaps what is most terrifying, however, are the consequences we are left with in the wake of this rogue spy’s final mission as a hunted man to at last reveal the brilliant scope of Dorian Knight’s vision and the true danger behind the prophecy the artist tried to communicate.  As a one-of-a-kind memoir of espionage in novel form, it is a critically acclaimed and intellectually engaging mystery like no other in its daring quest to decode the final contradictions of Capitalism and the CIA’s deadly intervention into the lives of so many of the most legendary artists of our time.