From the dust jacket: "Tatterdemalion is a collaboration between writer Sylvia V. Linsteadt and painter Rima Staines. Together they have created a vivid post-apocalyptic novel in which the northern California of the future is imagined through images and stories rooted deep in the traditions of European folk tales."
I bought a hardback copy of the Unbound edition of Tatterdemalion because I love Rima Staines' art but can't afford an original painting. If I understand Linsteadt's post, A Needle, An Egg, A Novel Being Born at Folklore Thursday, she, too was responding to the pictures but the two of them created the novel together. Certainly, their contributions combine synergistically to elicit dreams, fears, imaginings of what the future holds for the human and more-than-human world. It's a book that haunts me.
At the same time, the stories by themselves and the paintings by themselves can stand powerfully on their own. The fiction might even inspire other illustrators; the folkloric pictures seem to hint at story upon story.
A Dark Mountain Project post has more about Tatterdemalion with two illustrations from the book and a photograph of Linsteadt and Staines. And although I hate to promote the Great Satan, it's the best source I can find to enable you to look inside the book.
Question: Does anyone know of another novel that was inspired by a graphic artist's work and was written with the artist's participation?