This book contains everything that makes a book great... settings that are vivid, exciting, real... characters that are complex, imperfect, and seem so real, and a story that is not predictable, and an ending that stays with you.
Pinch wants his father, Bear Bavinsky's attention and tries through acquiescing to all Bear's emotional demands and foibles. He tries to become an artist, and when that fails, he spends his life trying to make human connections and be understood through teaching and studying languages.

Ultimately, he finds his talent and reunites his family through art and memory. The ending was surprising and thought-provoking. ( )

It’s awfully easy to satirize the uppermost layer of the market for contemporary art, where new works by name artists sell for millions to hedge fund managers and Russian oligarchs. Which isn’t to say doing so would be wrong. When a market shaping dealer in this novel is credited with the quip, “Success in art is fifty percent timing, fifty percent geography. The rest is talent”, it’s funny because it seems true.

Within that rarified community of artists, collectors, and dealers, one suspects, are more than a few raging narcissists. “Bear” Bavinsky certainly qualifies. He passes through the novel trampling over the well-being of his wives (7 or 8 of them in succession) and children (more than a dozen), leaving emotional carnage in his wake. Thankfully for the reader the novel’s focus is not on him but on his son Charles, aka Pinch.

Pinch struggles with a desperate need for his narcissistic father’s attention and approval, which can never be held with anything more than the most tenuous grip, and with often painful results. It’s almost enough to make one feel sorry for others who seem to be in a similar place, like, maybe, Eric Trump perhaps. They sometimes behave badly; they are badly damaged. But Pinch hopes that by finding a way to make himself useful to his father, and to his father’s identity, he will matter.

Of course it’s not to be. No matter who you are, you can never be important to a narcissist, not really. “Hear this. You work for me. Get it? You always worked for me,” Bear spits at Pinch, as he ultimately ejects Pinch from his life. “I win. You hear? I fucking win.”

The novel continues on from that point and Pinch proceeds to pull a fast one on the art world, a line of action which seems to have some believability issues, but hey, might could happen, never know. It’s fun to root for him, anyway. Later in life, on his deathbed, Pinch reaches an acceptance that feels real, and full of a grace we should all grant ourselves:

And his own life? Viewed at any point along the way, it seemed to Pinch to have so little direction. But from the present vantage, what happened feels inevitable - not because events were beyond his control but because they were within it. He couldn’t have been other than he was. That doesn’t hurt anymore. Just another ant, marching up and down.

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The plotting and pacing on this one didn't completely hang together for me, but I'm one of a small number of readers who really likes having a cast of imperfect characters, and there were plenty of flaws in this cast.

Our protagonist is Charles, son of Bear and Natalie. Bear is an American artist of some renown who paints parts of bodies. He is the kind of famous person you read about in the National Enquirer: charismatic, narcissistic, and constantly seducing women (and making plenty of children along the way). Natalie is the opposite (yes, opposites attract) by nature; sensitive, fragile, and guileless. Charles, also known as Pinch, wants nothing more than his father's affections which dangle tantalizingly out of reach. When Bear leaves Natalie, the yearnings only grow.

The novel follows Charles from the age of five until his death and how this pursuit of his father's love really impacts every aspect of his life - career, love, all of it.

For me, the highlight of the book was watching the main character struggle to find his place in the world in the shadow of this famous, bigger than life father and how the parental relationship impacted his entire life. Charles finally does grab some agency of his own life in a most unexpected way (and for me, not necessarily the most believable, but entertaining). ( )

“He supposes that this is how culture works: The taste-makers call something important until it becomes so, making themselves important in the process.”

Character-driven novel about the life of Charles “Pinch” Bavinsky, son of famous American artist Bear Bavinsky. The story starts in Italy in the 1950s, where Bear and Pinch’s mother, Natalie, are living an artist’s unconventional lifestyle. Natalie is an artist in her own right, specializing in pottery. Bear is a larger-than-life presence in his son’s life, an acclaimed genius of the art world, but unfortunately, he is a despicable person. Everything is about what Bear wants and his family suffers from neglect. He collects lovers and wives and has many children but none of them gain any foothold in his attentions, except for his son Pinch. Pinch is devoted to his father and does everything in his power to gain his favor. Bear throws him crumbs and can be extremely cruel, telling his son he has no artistic talent, which we find out later is not true.

Bear appears in Pinch’s life, wreaks havoc on his psyche, then disappears for long periods of time. His father intentionally damages his romantic relationship with a young woman, and Pinch carries a torch for her for years. The story follows Pinch’s life as he moves around the world, featuring stints in Rome, Toronto, London, and a cabin in France.

Pinch’s life includes all the expected phases in an ordinary life, while exploring themes of truth, beauty, and the intricacies of a father-son relationship. The characters in this novel are very well drawn, including the secondary characters that take center stage toward the end. Rachman has definitely done his homework regarding the creation of oil paintings. Unlike some other novels I have read, this one is extremely realistic.

This book is a combination of many of my favorite elements – a deep character study, a book about the art world, and a protagonist that eventually triumphs. I really enjoyed this one!
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Really did not enjoy. Happy to get to the end. Audio. ( )