The Ecliptic

If you’re thinking the Romantic myth of the suffering artist is dead and gone—well, think again. English novelist Benjamin Wood embraces the bluesy old song with gleeful gusto and uninhibited nostalgia in his second novel, The Ecliptic. His artist-heroine is as suffering as they come. Born into postwar, working-class Glasgow, Elspeth “Ellie” Conroy has to…