John Carrère, an architect during New York’s Gilded Age of industrial wealth, attempts to unlock the relationship that exists between an artist and his art. Does the artist control his art, or does the art control the artist? In observing his partner, Thomas Hastings, during the design and construction of The New York Public Library, Carrère confirms that every artistic relationship subject to evolution, frustration, and eventually reward. In this groundbreaking novel, John Fiske recalls the glorious Gilded years at the dawn of the Twentieth Century and describes in detail the now all-but-forgotten Beaux-Arts architectural design philosophy so prevalent at that time. He ruminates on the now-abandoned marble quarries of Vermont that yielded the stone for the Library, leading readers on a satisfying journey through history and toward discovery.