Saint Sebastian's Abyss

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Saint Sebastian's Abyss

by
Mark Haber

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

Title:	Saint Sebastian's Abyss
Author:	Mark Haber
Genre:	Novel
Written:	2022
Length:	144 pages
Availability:	Saint Sebastian's Abyss - US
	Saint Sebastian's Abyss - UK
	Saint Sebastian's Abyss - Canada
	L'abisso di San Sebastiano - Italia
	El abismo de San Sebastián - España

	from: Bookshop.org (US)

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Our Assessment:

B+ : good fun; nicely done

See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Summaries
Source	Rating	Date	Reviewer
The NY Times Book Rev.	.	10/7/2022	Jackson Arn

From the Reviews:

"Most of the novel's comic sparks come from the friction between the supposed sublimity of the painting and the blandness with which the narrator discusses it, although after all those books it's impressive he has anything left to say." - Jackson Arn, The New York Times Book Review

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       The Saint Sebastian's Abyss of the title is a painting by the (fictional) sixteenth-century painter Hugo Beckenbauer, one of only three by the artist to survive. The nameless American narrator and an Austrian colleague named Schmidt came across the painting while students at Oxford, at the Ruskin School of Art, and made their careers with it, devoting themselves entirely and obsessively to this one work of art. Each has written numerous books on it -- a Bibliography at the end lists all their (book) publications, all on this one painting -- and they are the recognized experts on the subject.
       The narrator and Schmidt have been estranged for over a decade now -- "I hadn't spoken to my best friend, meaning Schmidt, in over ten years, thirteen to be exact" -- but the narrator has now received an e-mail from Schmidt, who reveals he is on his deathbed, and so the narrator now makes his way to Berlin to see Schmidt one last time. In seventy-six short chapters the narrator chronicles his trip, reflecting on Schmidt, the painting, and art along the way.
       The narrator and Schmidt fell apart over "that horrible thing" that the narrator said, an opinion he once voiced. While the actual 'horrible thing' is long not revealed, it's clear from early on that Schmidt has very strong opinions and not surprising that he easily takes offense. The narrator has gone through two wives, and Schmidt couldn't stand either one; while Schmidt is convinced that art: "should be the centerpiece of one's entire world" he dismisses modern art, insisting that: "art had died in 1906", with the death of Cézanne.
       Not much is known about Beckenbauer, but he was: "what we today would call flamboyant" -- and, the narrator admits: "probably what we today would call a sex addict". A single collector bought up all his work, but almost all perished; only three paintings remain, all hanging in a Barcelona museum -- the sublime masterpiece that is Saint Sebastian's Abyss, only twelve by fourteen inches, and two comically oversize monstrosities (eight feet by twenty !) hanging on either side of it.
       Haber amusingly captures the absurdness of Schmidt and the narrator's earnest obsession with this single work. For good measure, the two also share another topic of interest -- "the end of the world, a subject of endless fascination for us" -- but, really, it can't compete with the painting and with the significance they imbue it with. Their lives circle almost entirely around it -- and are tied together by it as well, to the extent that eventually:

each book Schmidt wrote about Saint Sebastian's Abyss was a response to a book I had written about Saint Sebastian's Abyss, or the other way around, I can't remember anymore, but our books became attacks and insults, books like accusations and books like warfare.

       The Austrian Schmidt is a misanthropic, dogmatic intellectual straight out of Thomas Bernhard (and himself much like Bernhard), and Saint Sebastian's Abyss has the cadences of a Bernhard-novel -- though Haber's fiction is much gentler, as the American narrator has a much softer touch than Bernhard's narrators do. This doesn't make Saint Sebastian's Abyss Thomas Bernhard-lite, but rather more like a Bernhard novel told from a different perspective; other commonalities -- including the repetition, the harping on the same things and thoughts -- remain.
       Schmidt's e-mail to the narrator is, printed out, nine page long -- though the narrator repeatedly refers to it as a: "relatively short email". The narrator only describes its contents in outline, but one can easily imagine the digressive rant, and how typical it is for Schmidt. How seriously the narrator takes it is suggested also by his printing out three copies of it -- "two for the flight and one to tuck in my luggage in the event of some mild misfortune: spilled coffee, a tear, pages forgotten in the restroom, and so on". As with so much else surrounding Schmidt and the painting, repetition -- even in the form of simple, complete duplication -- is a default mechanism: like Schmidt, the narrator only circles around the most limited ambit.
       For all the absurdity and exaggeration, the (so limited) world of Schmidt and the narrator seems almost plausible, Haber's narrator both so sincere and so caught up in it. Near-farcical, Saint Sebastian's Abyss is grounded just enough -- the least successful parts of it the bits of Beckenbauer's biography, another character of great excess, that are strewn in. (Focused so on the art-work itself, the narrator and Schmidt (and Haber) don't really know what to do with the man behind it.)
       Nicely turned in its conclusion, too, with Schmidt's final revelation (and how the narrator is left dangling), Saint Sebastian's Abyss is an enjoyable entertainment and characters-study, and a fun take on and take-down of the (ultimately blind) veneration of art (and a specific work of art).

- M.A.Orthofer, 9 June 2026

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Links:

Saint Sebastian's Abyss:

Coffee House Press publicity page
Marcos y Marcos publicity page
Editorial Pre-Textos publicity page
Q & A at Alta
Q & A at Bomb
Q & A at The Brooklyn Rail
Q & A at the Southwest Review

Reviews:

Mark Haber:

Official site

Other books of interest under review:

See Index of Contemporary American fiction

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About the Author:

American author Mark Haber was born in 1972.

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