Art for sale

Patronage in the arts is hardly a new idea, but perhaps the notion of an artist being paid to produce art in return for an undemanding sexually-based relationship of mutual convenience and/or cynicism, as well as being given a limitless array of material comforts, is as ground-breakingly original as the American writer Mary Gordon seems to think. Unique or not, the theme certainly receives a glib treatment in her slight, disappointing and irritatingly pointless new novel, Spending (Bloomsbury, £12.99 in UK), an ill-judged effort which could undermine her literary status.

It is impossible for this reader to detect any literary, artistic or technical merit in what is a lazy, self-indulgent book. The most interesting reaction it provokes is the question as to why a novelist as accomplished as Gordon, whose novels include Final Payments and Men and Angels, would succumb to the brash, sexual agenda-based naivete demonstrated here. Devoid of insights or perception, the result reads like therapy or wish-fulfilment - or perhaps it is an ill-advised attempt to write the ultimate female revenge novel? The narrative, such as it is, is predictable, trite and mesmerically self-congratulatory.

Also baffling is the fact that Gordon is merely walking in the shadow of Fay Weldon, whose haphazard fiction has worked gender politics to death. All very strange, considering Mary Gordon's literary aspirations, which until now would have seemed closer to those of Margaret Atwood or Jane Smiley. In turning on its head the familiar story of the selfless female urging her man on to greatness, Gordon has teamed a two-dimensional man with a female artistic genius, an obnoxious anti-heroine who is not even interesting. There is also a worryingly defiant Peter Pan element, so favoured by Iris Murdoch: the central characters are adults only in terms of their calendar age. This is a novel in which an old lady at eighty finally decides to risk moving in with a man.

Monica Szabo, the narrator, is a deeply unpleasant, egotistical female fifty-year-old painter living the life of a spoilt teenager. Self-obsessed and apparently convinced she is a tough-talking visionary, Monica leads a ritualised life not much more interesting than that of an average TV sitcom heroine, all wisecracks and double-takes and aren't-men-a-joke asides - and yep, she loves her dog. She is the Artist, confident of her genius and doing well enough but worth more. Her twin daughters are grown, she has broken free of her former husband, and her aged mother merely hovers in the wings.

Monica still teaches and is not exactly waiting for her big break. But when it comes, boy, does she take it by the throat. It is all very hard to believe, and becomes increasingly more so.

There are many things wrong with this book, which is based on the hope that readers, particularly women, will be cheering at the idea of a middle-aged, smart-talking, gifted heroine being wooed by a rich man who encourages her art and remains sexually fascinated by her. And all without Monica having to wash a cup or be polite. This patron, known as B., is a handsome, unmarried man of 48 in possession of a perfect body, clean clothes, endless supplies of money and taste, no children and, let's not forget, the libido of an Olympian. And as sex is Monica's major preoccupation - aside from her art, her body and her opinions - B., it seems, has come to the right place. Once he pitches his offer, he remains determined to pamper, encourage and serve her. There are endless little jokes about his enslavement. All very ironic, all very unfunny and all very boring.

The two embark on a bizarre, unromantic physical relationship. Like athletes in training, they engage in endless sex, with good old Monica often taking charge. When they are not actually having sex, they are talking about it. It is recreational rather than romantic sex. In her quieter moments, Monica ponders B.'s sexual attributes with a deliberation equal to that of Humbert Humbert sighing about his Lolita. Gordon's slangy prose is, however, light years removed from that of Nabokov. Nor can she write like John Updike, whose territory she is trying to enter. Ignore the quote on the cover, which claims that Gordon "can write erotica" - this book is highly unerotic. For all the meditations on physical sensation, she never approaches Updike's inimitable capacity to write about carnality. As for the issues she tries to explore - the morality of money and sex, and the reality of relationships based on arrangements rather than emotion, dependence or vulnerability - it would take someone of the wisdom and intuitiveness of Toni Morrison to do them justice. Gordon's approach is unforgivably superficial, as is her prose.

Most of the banter which passes for dialogue fails. At times it is so self-conscious that it is as if the couple are no more than embarrassed actors struggling with their lines: "You don't know what it's like to have to fight your impulses to be a bimbo or a domestic servant because the person you are sharing the bathroom with has a cock." Slightly more tolerable when in the company of her equally smart-talking doctor sister, Monica the mother who finally remembers her daughters does not convince at all.

Determined to avoid tenderness, vulnerability or sentimentality, she takes everything B. has to offer: European trips, expensive clothes. Of course, she experiences token moments of doubt. Crisis for her is wishing B. would disappear and then wanting him back as soon as he leaves her in peace.

When B. finally loses his money, it seems Monica and he will actually have to face reality instead of simply wondering what to buy next. But no, Gordon introduces a sprightly and usefully rich old lady, a patron of the arts, who wants to shower her wealth on Monica. When our unappealing heroine learns of her good fortune she responds with the grace, elegance and natural charm she exhibits throughout the narrative, announcing to her benefactress: "Peggy, you're making me feel a little sick. I think I have to go home and throw up for a few hours. I'll call you in the morning."

If this were a first novel it would be ignored. Gordon is a major writer and the only serious question raised by a crude, cynical performance which takes three hundred pages to say very little - and that unconvincingly - is, Why was it published?