Renato, the Painter

Renato Stillamare paints landscapes as if they were nudes, and nudes as if they were landscapes. One winter's night seventy years earlier in a suburb of Boston, he was found swaddled in a basket outside the front door of a large, resourceful, passionate, and somewhat rash Sicilian-American clan named Cavallu, which adopted him. He may be the best painter of his generation (he doesn't know anyone better), but his canvasses are no longer in demand, nor have they been for the twenty-five years since he last had a Newbury Street gallery show. After retiring from teaching at Copley College of Art, Renato has retreated to his studio, if retreat is the word, where he is furiously painting, painting, painting, determined to be rediscovered. Renato is a force of nature, a big-hearted, lusty, opinionated, and occasionally intemperate man of large appetites whose children (including a daughter by his accidental mistress) are all grown up and dispersed, whose best friend (whom he misses more than anyone) died years ago, whose occasional wife (the love of his life) lives in a condo on the opposite bank of the Charles, and whose life is about to become much more complicated when the goth-bedecked daughter of a former student crashes at his loft with her little boy. The uproarious story of Renato's 70th year, which he unabashedly recounts with amazement and verve, is about extraordinary things simply happening to an ordinary man caught up in living life to the fullest. A funny, touching, even magical novel, Renato, the Painter is a splendid addition to the shelf of such literary classics as The Ginger Man and The Horse's Mouth.