How to Paint a Dead Man (28 page)

Thanks to the following people for invaluable help with research: Simon Webb, Diego Mencaroni, Paul Farley, Dana Prescott, Philip Robinson, Teana Newman, Lani Irwin, Alan Feltus, Tobias Feltus, Joseph Feltus, Dr Richard Thwaites, Dr Sarah Laing, Dr Charles Fernyhough, Neil Rollinson, Anthony Hall and Jonathan Hall.

Thanks to the following people for editorial advice, critical reading, and general feedback: Jacob Polley, Lee Brackstone, Clare Conville, Jennifer Pooley, Lisa Baker, Helen Francis, Jane Kotapish, Damon Galgut, Rebecca Morales, Christobel Kent, and Elizabeth Hall.

I am indebted to all those at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the staff, friends, and fellows, for the extraordinary gift of a residency in Umbria in 2007. Grazie!

Lastly, thanks to Peter, on the hill.

Sarah Hall
is the author of
Haweswater, The Electric Michelangelo,
and
Daughters of the North
.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

“For much of her new novel, Sarah Hall appears to be practicing a kind of literary verdaccio; going beneath the skin, delicately exploring the more sable recesses of her characters’ minds…. One is left with the impression of having studied an image, brimful with radiant objects, above a verdaccio undercoat.”

—Tom Bailey,
The Times Literary Supplement

“Hall’s writing manages to combine acute sensitivity and daring…. Visceral and engaging…the emotional lives of her characters are skillfully realized in this bright weave of disparate voices—for whom art is at once a way of seeing and a way of life.”

—
The Times
(London)

“[Hall’s] latest novel, even more than ever, reads as though it was an absolute thrill to write…. A maddeningly enticing read…. An amazing feat of literary engineering.”

—
The Independent on Sunday

“A stylish novel, as replete with ideas as it is technically ambitious…. There is no denying the confidence of her style and her emotional intelligence.”

—
The Guardian

“Invigorating…. This deeply sensual novel is what you rarely find—an intelligent page-turner which, perversely, you also want to read slowly to savor Hall’s luscious way of looking at the world.”

—
The Sunday Telegraph

“Sarah Hall’s writing is powerful as well as delicate, and
How to Paint a Dead Man
affords the deepest pleasures fiction has to offer. She weaves together the four strands of the story with supreme conviction, beauty, and emotional intelligence. To read it is to become a staunch admirer.”

—Nadeem Aslam

“Sex, death, art: the materials with which Sarah Hall works are potent indeed. And, given a lyrical style so beautifully worked and savorsome you can taste it, this novel could have overwhelmed. Hall’s book, however, slips cleverly between four separate narratives, allowing space for echoes to sound and tension to build…. Each narrative is a suggestive, almost tactile construct, with Hall’s talent evident on every page.”

—The Daily Mail

“A fiction preoccupied both with the act of looking and with the way that perception creates, as well as records, reality…. Sarah Hall writes a fine, vivid prose of exceptional poetic intensity and…luminous beauty.”

—The Daily Telegraph

“Elegantly entwining four separate but interconnected lives—from a dying painter to a young woman having a dangerous affair—it’s a moving read.”

—
Elle
(UK)

“Elegant and poetic…captivating.”

—Eithne Farry,
Marie Claire
(four stars)

“Sarah Hall is a huge talent…. A beautiful, powerful book of love, lust, death, passion, art, desperation, and loss. She writes her characters brilliantly…. I wish I had more space to enthuse.”

—
The Bookseller
(Bookseller’s Choice)

“A brilliantly written study of small and large artistic triumphs.”

—Harriet Compston,
Tatler

“ [Hall] has the linguistic energy and daring to conjure a novel out of the intensity of experience…. She describes [it] with the precise acuity of a startled imagination….
How to Paint a Dead Man
is her finest novel yet.”

—Cumberland News

Daughters of the North

The Electric Michelangelo

Haweswater

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

HOW TO PAINT A DEAD MAN
. Copyright © 2009 by Sarah Hall. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Digital Edition August 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-187355-3

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1