It starts off pretty slowly - the tale of a friendship between a teacher and an artist, their wives and their sons. The writing is lovely, descriptive and you kind of get drawn into their weird and convoluted lives, but towards the end of the first section, it is kind of boring, kind of exhausting, and you feel like giving up. Then there's a sudden death, one that you don't see coming until a couple of pages before, and suddenly this sense of loss, grief and anger enters the narrative. This is then followed by the realisation that another of the characters is so wrong, so devious and horrible - a realisation that the reader is smacked over the head with in much the same way as the other characters. There's a murder mystery, more death, deceit and a thriller-esque chase across America.

All in all, this wasn't what I was expecting. I was captivated by the style and the language from early on. Bill the artist was fascinating and I could imagine going to see, and liking, his artwork. The snippets of information on hysteria and eating disorders was fascinating, as was the art history. And as I said at the beginning, I liked the ending in that it left you a bit confused. There's no happy endings, no pat answers or explanations - this is what happened and that's it!