The Painter

by Peter Heller

"Peter Heller, the celebrated author of the breakout best-seller The Dog Stars, returns with an achingly beautiful, wildly suspenseful second novel about an artist trying to outrun his past. Years ago, a well-known expressionist painter named Jim Stegner shot a man in a bar. The man lived, Jim served his time, and he has learned to live with the dark impulses that sometimes overtake him. Jim enjoys a quiet life in the valleys of Colorado. He works with a lovely model, he doesn't drink, he goes fly fishing in the evenings. His paintings fetch excellent prices at a posh gallery in Santa Fe. He is--if he can admit it--almost happy. One day, driving down a dirt road, Jim sees a man beating a small horse. Jim leaps out of the truck, tackles the man, and bloodies his nose. The man is Dell, a cruel hunting outfitter notorious among locals. Jim cannot shake his rage over the little horse. The next night, under a full moon, telling himself he is just going night fishing, he returns to the creek where Dell has his camp and kills him. As Jim tries to come to terms with what he has done, he must evade the police, navigate his own conscience, and escape the members of Dell's clan set on revenge. And he paints the whole time; trying to make sense of his actions. Traveling from the rough adobe cottages and rivers of Colorado to the bright streets and galleries of Santa Fe, aching with grief and transcendent with beauty, The Painter is a story about art and love and violence, and using the remnants of hardship to create a rich life"--

"Peter Heller, the celebrated author of the breakout best seller The Dog Stars, returns with an achingly beautiful, wildly suspenseful second novel about an artist trying to outrun his past"--

Having served time for shooting a man, Jim Stegner gets good money for his paintings at a Santa Fe gallery and has sworn off violence. Then he spies a bad-news local named Dell beating a horse and intervenes; a painting he does of a man digging a grave proves prophetic, as Jim again encounters Dell and kills him.

• ISBN10: 0385352093
• ISBN13: 9780385352093
• Publish Date: 6 May 2014 (first published 1 January 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Imprint: Knopf Publishing Group
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[lovelybookshelf]

Originally posted on my blog, A Lovely Bookshelf on the Wall:

Well-known painter Jim Stegner has a checkered past and is prone to violence. Having lost his marriage and his daughter, Jim escapes to rural Colorado to paint, fish, and deal with his grief. When his inner demons surface once again, Jim flees, struggling to understand and overcome his true nature while being chased by those wanting revenge.

Peter Heller has created a heart-wrenching portrait of grief. Watching Jim work through that grief was compelling, sometimes overwhelming. There is a good bit of confusion in this novel: it's hard to get a straight answer about what happened, about what exactly is going on, especially since Jim seems to lose chunks of time. It creates a good deal of suspense.

Yet...I still found myself bored with large portions of the narrative. I'm normally a fan of slower-paced, character-driven novels, but I wasn't able to fully relax and enjoy that aspect here. Once the story started to fill with suspense, I needed the pace to pick up. Instead, there were times when it felt like it stalled out.

I find myself in the same state of mind after reading The Painter as I was with Heller's previous novel, The Dog Stars: I enjoyed it well enough, but wasn't left with strong feelings either way. On the Goodreads scale, I'm halfway between "it's okay" and "liked it" so, 2 1/2 stars here.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review.