Artist Harriet Burden consumed by fury at the lack of recognition she has received from the New York art establishment embarks on an experiment she calls Maskings: she hides her identity behind three male fronts who exhibit her work as their own. And yet even after she has unmasked herself there are those who refuse to believe she is the woman behind the men. Presented as a collection of texts compiled by a scholar years after Burden's death the book's story unfolds through extracts from her notebooks reviews and articles as well as testimonies from her children her lover a dear friend and others more distantly connected to her. Each account is different however and the mysteries multiply. One thing is clear: Burden's involvement with the acclaimed artist Rune turned into a charged and dangerous psychological game that ended with the man's bizarre death.This is a polyphonic tour de force from the internationally acclaimed author of What I Loved an intricately conceived diabolical puzzle that explores the way prejudice fame money and desire influence our perceptions of one another. Emotionally intense intellectually rigorous ironic and playful The Blazing World is as gripping as it is thought provoking.