The Italian Teacher - Hardcover

Rachman, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 073522269X ISBN 13: 9780735222694

Publisher: Viking Pr, 2018

Synopsis

“An exotic touch of intrigue arises in THE ITALIAN TEACHER . . . deliciously ironic and deeply affectionate.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
 
A masterful novel about the son of a great painter striving to create his own legacy, by the bestselling author of The Imperfectionists.

Conceived while his father, Bear, cavorted around Rome in the 1950s, Pinch learns quickly that Bear's genius trumps all. After Bear abandons his family, Pinch strives to make himself worthy of his father's attention--first trying to be a painter himself; then resolving to write his father's biography; eventually settling, disillusioned, into a job as an Italian teacher in London. But when Bear dies, Pinch hatches a scheme to secure his father's legacy--and make his own mark on the world.

With his signature humanity and humor, Tom Rachman examines a life lived in the shadow of greatness, cementing his place among his generation's most exciting literary voices.

About this title

Review

An Amazon Best Book of March 2018: What if your father was one of the 20th century’s most celebrated painters: Julian Schnabel, say, or Lucian Freud? How would you define yourself against that kind of talent and machismo? In The Italian Teacher, his utterly absorbing third novel, Tom Rachman sets in play just that dynamic. Bear Bavinsky is a world-famous painter, a first-class narcissist, and father of seventeen children, whom he treats with careless, sometimes callous, warmth. Bear’s shy son Pinch loves to paint, but his ambitions are snuffed by his father’s offhand critique: “I got to tell you, kiddo. You’re not an artist and you never will be.” After that, nothing in Pinch’s life seems to gel -- until after Bear’s death, when Pinch’s role as caretaker of his father’s legacy grants him scope to come into his own. Ironies abound.

As with Rachman’s 2010 newsroom novel The Imperfectionists, it’s a testament to the credibility of the narrative that you feel he may be writing about real people, thinly disguised as fiction. But in The Italian Teacher, Rachman is a more likeable storyteller: his social satire seems more thoroughly tempered by sympathy and a longer perspective. Lately, a number of excellent novels have focused on the impact of a single painting (The Goldfinch; The Painted Kiss; The Fortunate Ones, to name a few). The Italian Teacher looks at art with a less reverential slant, and asks intriguing questions, along the way, about the costs, and value, of the artistic life. If you enjoyed William Boyd’s Any Human Heart, you’ll love Rachman’s portrait of Pinch, who has the good luck to both outlive and survive his famous father, and to find, in the end, a way to take ownership of his difficult legacy. —Sarah Harrison Smith, Amazon Book Review

About the Author

Tom Rachman is the author of two novels, The Rise & Fall of Great Powers (2014), and The Imperfectionists (2010), an international bestseller that has been translated into 25 languages. Rachman, who was born in London in 1974 and raised in Vancouver, studied journalism at Columbia University in New York. In 1998, he joined the Associated Press as a foreign-desk editor in New York, then became a correspondent in Rome in 2002. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Slate and The New Statesman, among other publications. He lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Pr
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 073522269X
• ISBN 13: 9780735222694
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 341