CIRCLES OF DECEIT

About this item

This is a story about lies and truths and about a painter, a copyist, who paints modern versions of Old Masters and is ‘bothered by bills and artistic conscience in about equal measure … susceptible to, bullied and badgered by women.’ Major figures on the foreground of his crowded life canvas are Clio, his child-bride and her young boy; Helen, his first wife who left him, badly, but never really separates; and his mother who observes it all with a splendidly caustic humour. In the background, always, is his own silent son.