What readers think of The Painter, plus links to write your own review.

When I first started this book I had some trouble getting into it. What kept me reading were the wonderful words and beautiful descriptions of scenery and wildlife and the compelling, but complicated persona that is the character Jim Stegner. This is a novel of contrasts, dark and gritty alongside beauty and peace.

Jim is a haunted man, a man at war, not in some other country, but within his own self. He seeks peace in painting and fly fishing and there are many descriptions of both. He is haunted by his Mother's death when he was a teenager and before he had a chance to tell her he loved her and by his fifteen yr.old daughters murder. Now a painter whose paintings sell quite well, he is living the life of a recluse in Colorado. He paints and fished to forget and also to remember. He is a smart man, one who reads novels and quotes from his favorite poets.

Yet within his psyche lives darkness and as once before an incident for which he served jail time, a situation will find him again losing control. Will the darkness once again control his life, or will he find peace and acceptance within himself? As the tension mounts and the new trouble threatens his peace, freedom and life, his paintings get better and better, come faster and faster. This will confront him with another moral dilemma.

Told in a first person narrative, this is an amazing book about a man's quest for redemption. Using nature and painting to exercise his demons, a man wanting peace but his very nature makes this less than impossible. A book to be patient with and to feel the emotional impact of this character. He could be anyone of us.