The Unfinished Novel (2006)

''Everyone agreed that artists were, by their nature, difficult people,'' the narrator of ''Beethoven'' says of her struggling painter boy-friend. ''Maybe Phil's problem was that he wasn't difficult enough.'' Maybe not, judging by the strangely charged end of their affair — or by Valerie Martin's memorable depictions of artists' desires, jealousies, and ostrich-egg egos in The Unfinished Novel. In the title story, a semi-successful novelist (excessive martinis, late-model Volvo) confronts a potentially brilliant manuscript by his seedy and unsuccessful ex. His summary of their relationship typifies Martin's rueful tone: ''Though we had briefly been lovers, there was no sense in which Rita and I were friends.''