Epic poems need epic heroes—divine, fantastic creatures, whose larger than life exploits project the spirit of an age. Homer’s had Odysseus, Dante’s Beatrice, and now David Breskin has bequeathed our celebrity-obsessed era its very own form-fitting ‘Supermodel’. Loosely inspired by the story of tsunami survivor Petra Nemcova, the heroine of Supermodel is an outsized force of nature: fiercely competitive, intellectually curious, emotionally wounded, resolutely moral, and of course, ravishingly attractive—a globe-trotting innocent who exudes sexuality in every way...except the most obvious. As she literally clings to life, her story is revealed in a series of flashbacks which wing us from Middle East to Wild West, desert to tropics, country to city—all vividly described, in potent couplets, as paradises found and lost. Breskin peppers this dark comedy with unsettling wordplay, shrewd social commentary, and a reporter’s acute eye for the facts of life: his virtuosic writing matches the breathless pace and rich complexity of his heroine's travails. But even as Breskin relates his supermodel’s tale, his story is matched by strangely salient scrolls of ‘found poetry’ culled from web sites. This new feat of literary dovetailing creates a sublime surprise: the first epic poem of the Internet Age.
Supermodel Petra Nemcova was vacationing in Thailand when the tsunami hit. Her boyfriend was swept to his death and she, severely injured, barely survived by clinging to a palm tree for eight hours. Drawing his inspiration from this image of a cultivated beauty holding her own in the face of disaster, David Breskin constructs a narrative of the life of a model who battles against the pain and uncertainties of her youth. She asserts creative control, transforming herself from a vulnerable young woman into an aesthetic symbol. The main narrative is set against a background of borrowed text: Internet quotations about everything from military operations to the practice of vaginoplasty. Taken together, these elements create a disarming chorus of human voices, each involved in its own fight against the futility and sorrow symbolized by the cataclysmic tidal wave.
