Crude

In a country called Academia, art critic Ida O’Dewey is at the top of her game – until she misjudges the limit between satire and irresponsibility, live on radio. She must retrieve her public reputation and avoid professional extinction, but sources of power and methods of persuasion are never clear-cut. An enigmatic group of radical sensualists, with an occult attraction to a glossy black substance and a deep contempt for mainstream conceptualism, present a possible way out. This stuff called ‘oil’, Ida intuits, could be the perfect subject for a block-busting thesis. Crude relates the non-sequiturs and irrational connections that make up a complex society, where even the most specialised and experienced cannot profess to be in control of their immediate future.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sally O’reilly is a writer and art critic. She has contributed to Art Monthly, Frieze, Cabinet, Modern Painters and Time Out, and has written catalogue essays for numerous international art exhibitions. Her book The Body in Contemporary Art was published by Thames and Hudson in 2009, and Mark Wallinger by Tate Publishing in 2015. Crude is her first novel.

PRAISE FOR CRUDE:
In Crude, Sally O’Reilly sets up a relationship between academia
and the oil industry. What emerges in this ingenious novel is an
ever-expanding exploration of how art historical and literary
theory can become embedded within our everyday realities.
O’Reilly utilises the double-meanings of its title in order to
explore the slippery and sticky underflow of rhetoric, social
networks and in-fighting within the art world. The result is a work
that oscillates between fiction and reality. Crude is a revelation.
— Hans-Ulrich Obrist

Crude is an extraordinary novel. With a mastery of language and
style, Sally O’Reilly takes us on a narrative of intrigue, power and
desire in an imagined future in a new land called Academia. As
the story unfolds it leaves a seductively bitter aftertaste, and a
lesson in writing and research.
— Lisa Le Feuvre

Complex, calculating but vulnerable Ida thinks up a deliberately
perverse storm, as she propels herself through a sometimes
hilarious terrain of descriptive density and topographical
perception; close, distant, alienating and touching.
— Sacha Craddock

If you have ever fancied the idea of becoming an art critic,
this witty post-Ballardian impostor’s nightmare will effectively
disabuse you of it. And the world minus one more art critic will
be a safer place.
— Zinovy Zinik

Most of us have felt that we were being used. It shouldn’t last
long. In organisations it may last very much longer. I have
certainly felt like somebody else’s toilet brush. Sally O’Reilly
magnetises these dynamics through the pores of her very fine
and funny mind, and sends them back to us with the emotional
precision we associate with a brilliant watch maker.
— Richard Wentworth

Abject, dexterous and smart, Crude is an artworld satire for the
clitorary crit crowd.
— Clunie Reid

In this paranoid comedy of bad manners, the acrid smell of scores
being settled and base intentions refined commingle to create a
satiric and piquant melange. Very funny and quotable.
— Mark Wallinger