"Lawrence Weschler, who evidently admires Boggs-something not difficult to do-has written what may be the
most extraordinary biography imaginable: "weird," to use a favourite Boggs word. It does something towards
changing our entire outlook on money and its uses. And the reader is left with an uneasy feeling that anything
in this world can be created by drawing it."
--Ruth Rendell, Daily Telegraph
"As ideal a subject matter as money is for Boggs' genius, Boggs is as ideal a topic for Weschler's considerable
talents....A writer any less lucid than Weschler would smudge the lines, making of Boggs a counterculture caricature
or a high-art huckster. And a writer any less confident would knock the balance, making academic mud pies of Boggs'
enlightened chaos."
--Jonathon Keats, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"A witty and engaging chronicle....Weschler's fascinating account of the artist as agent provocateur demonstrates
both the significance of Boggs's art and his determination to continue his unusual critique of the idea of money."
--Henry Wessells, Washington Post Book World
"A witty, excellently written account of a bizarre and fascinating snippet of modern life."
--Paul Ormerod, Times Higher Education Supplement
"The book, like the artist, challenges people to pause and consider the extent to which the economic bedrock
of everyday life is in part a confusing welter of artistic abstractions. It's a work that is at once informative,
entertaining, and provocative-a reading experience, one might say, of rather good value."
--Toby Lester, Atlantic Monthly
Publisher Web Site, January, 2004
Summary
In this highly entertaining book, Lawrence Weschler chronicles the antics of J. S. G. Boggs, an artist whose
consuming passion is money, or perhaps more precisely, value. Boggs draws money-paper notes in standard currencies
from all over the world-and tries to spend his drawings. It is a practice that regularly lands him in trouble with
treasury police around the globe and provokes fundamental questions regarding the value of art and the value of
money.
