BOOKS
Consent
By Jill Ciment. Pantheon.
Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
Jill Ciment and Arnold Mesches had a wonderful marriage. Her new memoir asks: What does it mean that they met when she was 17 and he was 47?
Jill Ciment and Arnold Mesches in 1983. Photo courtesy of Jill Ciment
Jill Ciment met her husband of 45 years, the painter Arnold Mesches, when he was her art teacher. He was 47; she was 17. The year was 1970, a time when, in the bohemian California circles the pair frequented, people prized sexual liberation over what they often viewed as mere propriety. Even so, her mother called Mesches a “pervert,” and Ciment and Mesches initially hid their relationship from many of their acquaintances and colleagues.