Offering the long view, as would a novel, of life as a concatenation of a great number of events between birth and death would not suit his stylistic inclinations. Instead, he focuses on a handful of scenes and musters his exceptional style — arguably, closer to the prose poem than to narrative prose — in an attempt to make them at once palpable and emblematic. Nothing is diluted; these are heady, compassionate distillations — like cognac.

Its feeling for art, its psychological acuity, its inclination for the grand statement, and its appeal to the lofty—are multiplied throughout The Eleven to glorious ends. I cannot recommend the book highly enough.

Michon's prose tends to slow down in order to oblige you to hear its rhythms and also to see and touch and smell what is happening beneath it.

Here Mr. Michon has taken his talents for speculation in a very powerful direction, by imagining a piece of history that ought to exist but doesn't. He has created a figure as seemingly real as any of the biographical figures he draws elsewhere, and thus has brought to history a new possibility. A brilliant, surprising book, The Eleven is historical fiction at its best: a wholly imagined work that scrutinizes and reconceives how we construct history, time and experience.

The Eleven is a fascinating book. And one that makes you think.

The emotion, the forceful claims of the imagery ... Michon achieves what other writers wouldn't try, licensed as he is by keen regret and transfigured loss. Michon misses the poetry of the past, and in missing it he possesses it.

It will bring you to your knees.

The painting 'The Eleven'. . . Michon describes it with such precision, with such force, that you start to think it exists.

Genius, completely dazzling and full of dread, dark and brilliant, as if radiating with a black light.

Just over 100 stunning pages. . .

[Michon's] aesthetic integrity and strict austerity have earned him the adoration of critics and made him worth teaching in every university.