“Art, love and longing, the French way . . . an emotionally taut portrayal of late-in-life, post-marriage drift” from the author of The 6:41 to Paris (The New York Times Book Review).
A French teacher on the verge of retirement is invited to a glittering opening that showcases the artwork of his former student, who has since become a celebrated painter. This unexpected encounter leads to the older man posing for his portrait. Possibly in the nude. Such personal exposure at close range entails a strange and troubling pact between artist and sitter that prompts both to reevaluate their lives. Blondel, author of the hugely popular novel The 6:41 to Paris, evokes an intimacy of dangerous intensity in a tale marked by profound nostalgia and a reckoning with the past that allows its two characters to move ahead into the future.
“A striking variation on the theme of the muse, this novel probes overlapping varieties of attraction . . . It veers toward the erotic, quickening the painter’s search for the model’s soul—‘a term that disintegrates the moment you try to define it.’”―The New Yorker
“Captivating . . . The novel flies by with gentle humor, but it also poses complex questions about the meaning of art and sexuality, and offers an elegiac look at late middle age . . . Irresistible, and the story’s fundamental kindness sets it apart.”―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A novel of tender, shy wisdom whose characters remind each other that memory lives in the body, loosened like knots by the right touch.” —Patrick Nathan, author of Image Control