Infinite Gradation is an astonishing meditation on the mystery at the heart of our mortality. In lines as precise and profound as any Michaels has written, Infinite Gradation movingly explores the nature of responsibility in extremis and the forms it takes—it is about hope in art, what art makes of death, and bears witness to the love and lives of visual artists and writers who have made work at the limits of experience.Infinite Gradation finds its way to a most powerful solace. (Michaels embraces mortality through three great artists, recently dead, who were her confidants: the sculptor Eva Hesse, the painter Jack Chambers, and Claire Wilks, print maker and sculptor.)