Nancy Resler’s The Last Protégée

(Rebel ePublishers / Detroit, New York, London)

Nancy Resler’s The Last Protégée (Rebel ePublishers, Detroit-New York-London, 2015)

The darker form with the red diamond in the center is the Master, her will to power and to success. The still dark but smaller form, rimmed in blue appearing on the right near the door is me, the recently reluctant disciple, with my despair and my desperate desire to be free.  from The Last Protegee

The Last Protégée is an eloquent coming of age story as well as a post modern memoir-detective story. The narrator searches through memory and memorabilia to figure out who betrayed whom, the master or the disciple. After being “specially selected for great things,” “hitched to a star” the young girl resists self-annihilation, resists turning over her soul to the great teacher, the domineering conductor, Antonia Brico. With an eye of a visual artist and the voice of poet, Resler creates a provocative and powerful image of the unshakeable Antonia Brico and her last protégée.