Fear and Money

An intense inner monologue that captures the various manifestations and effects of fear in relation to money or the lack of it.

In this fictional work by author and art historian Isabelle Graw, fear indeed eats the soul of the protagonist as she struggles to survive in a world increasingly defined and divided by money, addressing the situation with psychoanalytic depth. Relatable to anyone who recognizes the stream of anxious thoughts along with feelings of isolation and abandonment, the gripping inner monologue in this latest novel from Graw also offers instances of relief, connecting all who feel equally stuck, frayed, and neurotic, and suggesting a collective route through this crisis-shaken world.“Isabelle Graw wields a fine-toothed comb, disentangling money and neurosis at the aching heart of a life lived in the art world.”
—Calla Henkel

“Isabelle Graw’s novel-essay brilliantly succeeds in translating two such equally intangible afflictions as rising anxiety and a lack of money into a long monologue on the concrete confusions of everyday life. Elegant, metropolitan, and intellectually versed, its protagonist and narrator meets these challenges with despair or self-mockery, panic or playful lightness. The urbanites of toda should have no problem recognizing themselves in these subtle self-observations, and in these disturbing and occasionally comic vignettes and reflections. A book full of melancholy and lucid insight.”
—Joseph VoglIsabelle Graw is the publisher of the journal Texte zur Kunst, which she cofounded with Stefan Germer (1958–1998) in 1990, and professor of art history and art theory at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main. Books published by Sternberg Press include On the Benefits of Friendship (2023), In Another World: Notes, 2014–2017 (2020), The Love of Painting: Genealogy of a Success Medium (2018), and High Price: Art Between the Market and Celebrity Culture (2010).