The Italian Teacher

by Tom Rachman

A sparkling, propulsive new novel from the bestselling author of The Imperfectionists.

Rome, 1955. The artists gather for a picture at a party in an ancient villa. Bear Bavinsky, creator of vast canvases, larger than life, is at the centre of the picture. His wife, Natalie, edges out of the shot.

From the side of the room watches little Pinch—their son. At five years old he loves Bear almost as much as he fears him. After Bear abandons their family, Pinch will still worship him, striving to live up to the Bavinsky name; while Natalie, a ceramicist, cannot hope to be more than a forgotten muse. Trying to burn brightly in his father's shadow, Pinch's attempts flicker and die. Yet by the end of a career of twists and compromises, Pinch will enact an unexpected rebellion that will leave forever his mark upon the Bear Bavinsky legacy.

A masterful, original examination of love, duty, art and fame, The Italian Teacher cements Tom Rachman as among this generation's most exciting literary voices.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Art, Italy, Literary Fiction, Historical, Book Club

340 pages, Hardcover

First published February 20, 2018

About the author

Tom Rachman is the author of four works of fiction: his bestselling debut, The Imperfectionists (2010), which was translated into 25 languages; the critically acclaimed follow-up, The Rise & Fall of Great Powers (2014); a satirical audiobook-in-stories Basket of Deplorables (2017); and an upcoming novel set in the art world, The Italian Teacher (March 2018).

Born in London and raised in Vancouver, Tom studied cinema at the University of Toronto and journalism at Columbia University in New York. He worked at The Associated Press as a foreign-news editor in Manhattan headquarters, then became a correspondent in Rome. He also reported from India, Sri Lanka, Japan, South Korea, Egypt, Turkey and elsewhere. To write fiction, he left the AP and moved to Paris, supporting himself as an editor at the International Herald Tribune. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and newyorker.com, among other publications. He lives in London.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read “The Imperfections”, by Tom Rachman, with my local book club ways back - and wasn’t crazy about it in the same way other members in our group were — I found it dry and dull ...
I never wrote review after our group discussion. I just forgot about it.

And - then - this week I was given this lovely Advance copy of “The Italian Teacher”.
And WOW.... what a completely different experience from the same author.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel - which begins in Rome, 1955.. then 1965...then in Toronto, in 1971...then London...back to Toronto... Pennsylvania in 1976....
London in 1981.....1985...1990....1996...1998...2002...2007...2010...2011......2018

There are a few things that appealed to me right away. The names of the 3 main characters were each interesting:
Bear Bavinsky...Pinch Bavinsky ( his son whose real name is Charles), and Natalie (Natty)... wife and mother of Pinch. Turns out it wasn’t just their names that were interesting: THEY WERE!
The other things I liked right off the bat:
.......this story had an art theme.
.......the savvy and cunning dialogue.

This story belongs to Pinch. When we first meet him he’s only five years of age. His dad, Bear, is a great painter and Pinch strives to make himself worthy for his father‘s attention by first trying to be a painter himself, ( I was aching for Pinch in a few scenes when he was young as Bear could be a slimball), then by writing his father‘s biography and then eventually, disillusioned, Pinch takes a job as an Italian teacher in London.
When Bear dies, Pinch has a plan- rather an unlikely scheme to assure his father’s legacy.

There are other great minor characters - Bear was married 4 times - with several kids from each marriage — so lots of half siblings. Under the humor - much of this story is downright heartbreaking. Yet... the humor really is priceless and the story is as entertaining as can be. Love Tom Rachman’s writing of this novel.

Thanks Will! Nice gift!

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is in many way about art, the art of an eccentric, self centered, overbearing, unfaithful man, a painter appropriately named Bear Bavinsky. It’s about the artist who is famous and yet shuns the critics and the galleries, destroys his work if it is not how he wants it to be .There are certainly some thought provoking questions raised about art and the relationship the artist has with his work, about creativity. For whom is the art created - for the artist, for those who look at it, for the rich collector who stows it away or is it to be placed in a museum for the masses ? What is it’s worth - is it monetary or meaning? It’s about the man’s personal life as he moves from place to place from wife to wife abandoning not just the wives but the children along the way, at least five wives and eleven children.

Even with this, the heart of the story is his son Pinch (Charles ) Bavinsky. Taking us from Rome to New York to London to Toronto to Pennsylvania to France and back to some of these places again, we follow Pinch from age five in 1955 through 2011, with the novel ending in 2018. Bear, of course looms large in Pinch’s life, as Pinch continually seeks approval from his uninterested father. I saw this as a portrait in loneliness in many ways. Pinch, as a child never had friends and it isn’t until college that he finds a best friend in Marsden. Pinch never seems sure of who he really is or what he should be doing . He’s indelibly connected to art by birth perhaps, or because this is where he needs to be to be close to his father or is he really an artist himself? We experience his failed relationships as he seeks the closeness that has evaded him, ambitions that never seem to come to fruition and these raise questions about what one does with their life, how well lived is it? Pinch does eventually discover who he is and I’ll leave it at that to avoid spoilers. This is the third novel by Tom Rachman that I have read and enjoyed. He is definitely on my list of authors that I never want to miss.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Riverrun through Edelweiss.

[zuza_zaksiazkowane · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”How amazing my mother and father were! All those years, all their bullying doubts, all in the paltry hope that strangers might someday stand before their work and look, probably no longer than a few seconds. That’s all they were fighting for.

What driven lives!”

Charles “Pinch” Bavinsky is the Roman spawn of a Canadian sculptor and a celebrated American artist. Bear Bavinsky achieved his reputation in the 1950s by painting body parts, never faces. His canvases are masculine and virile to match his Hemingwayesque personality. He is a charmer. Woman become weak in the knees around him, gallery owners froth at the mouth, collectors beg to be allowed to buy his art, and even those who meet him that don’t know who he is find themselves seduced by his magnetic, larger than life personality.

Can you imagine being his son?

Pinch worships his father and spends a lifetime trying to get his attention. Bear is rather indifferent to his offspring, almost calloused, but when he does share the warmth of his attention with one of them, it is like they have inhaled a drug they can’t get enough of. So his kids end up loathing him and loving him in wildly changing measures. Bear likes his kids more when they are small and cute. By the time they get older, he doesn’t have to deal with them because he has already moved on to the next woman. Sometimes the next woman overlaps with the current woman. Bear is a self-indulgent, egotistical, domineering nightmare to be involved with, but every one of his past conquests would drop everything to be with him again.

Did I mention he has seventeen kids?

Out of all of his wives, girlfriends, flings, we get to know Pinch’s mother Natalie the best, the woman who inspired some of his best paintings. As any woman would be, she is overwhelmed by him. Her attempt at an artist’s career is floundering and drowning in the wake of his successes. As Pinch gets older, he becomes more reflective about his mother, less embarrassed by her, and more understanding of the sacrifices she made to her own aspirations to be Bear’s muse and to raise a child by herself. ”None of her works will sit in a museum, he knows. Natalie, toiling through the night, or building slow pieces at her solicary workshop, or looking at him from her potter’s wheel in Rome---she was disregarded, and will remain so forever, among the billions whose inner lives clamor, then expire, never to earn the slightest notice.

It is not enough to be good. The world churns on personalities. By Bear being a larger than life figure, how good was his art? Are even the critics capable of evaluating him properly if they are caught like moth in the glow of his flame? Bear is hyper critical of his own art, and few of his pieces ever survive from a blank canvas to a finished painting. He keeps a barrel in the back alley that he can burn the paintings that are deemed imperfect.

So we follow Pinch through his trials of trying to become a painter only to see him slapped down by a single damning sentence from his father. The Bear God has spoken so there is no point in continuing. Pinch becomes an academic, intent on becoming known well enough to write his father’s biography in yet another attempt to prove himself worthy of his father’s respect.

Sometimes we give away lifetimes trying to impress the wrong person.

Pinch meets a few women in the course of his life, but he is not very successful with any of them. His marriage to Julie is a disaster. ”She must be around his age, perhaps a tad older, with caramel-brown curls framing confectionary eyes, a wide strong frame, soft without being curvaceous. Julie M. is not beautiful. He experiences a rush of need for her.” This reminds me of Marcel Proust’s great quote: ”Let us leave pretty women to men with no imagination.” I applaud Pinch for finding Julie attractive for not being beautiful. I personally find women who are perfectly beautiful rather unappealing. There is something unreal about them. I’d rather see a woman with a gap between her teeth or with features slightly out of balance or, better yet, to be attractive because she is passionate about something or wickedly intelligent.

My only concern is that, after reading about the descriptions of the legions of women that Bear found attractive, I feel this sinking suspicion that Pinch’s interest in Julie is based more on his father’s ideal of a mate than his own.

The plot moves us from Italy to the United States, mixed with several desperate trips by Pinch to his father’s estate in France to try and insure his father’s legacy continues to grow. The lengths that Pinch is willing to go are really beyond the pale.

The payoff for me in this novel is that Pinch does finally assert himself in a BRAVO! hand clapping style that had me grinning to myself. There are all kinds of ways to win, and Pinch finds a sneaky way to become almost as famous as his father.

It is a secret.

I enjoyed Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists so it was no surprise to find myself absorbed in this new cast of characters. Of course, Bear takes center stage even when he isn’t on stage, but the supporting characters to his largeness, like Natalie and Pinch, are much more real than he could ever be. It is so hard to have a good life or the right life. By the time we have figured out what we’ve done or not done, twenty years, forty years have passed, and we are looking in a mirror at a stranger. The fire in the belly has dampened and regret can be a shroud that covers us til we expire. Pinch may have given up too many years standing in the shadow of his father and chasing a vision of himself shaped by his obsession with his father, but I do hope in the end he understood that his life, though far removed from his expectations, was still a good life.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An underlying premise of this novel is that personality is just as important as talent in achieving fame. TV perhaps bears this theory out. Pinch, the novel's main protagonist has very little personality. He's completely overshadowed by his artist father, Bear Bavinsky. Bear conforms to just about every popular cliché of the artist - an egotistical womaniser who uses his fidelity to his art as a means of blundering through life like a self-indulgent child without restraints. (I was almost ashamed of myself for finding him attractive!) The author manages to create a compelling character of this cliché who gives the novel a lot of its vitality.
The novel opens in the 1950s when Bear is married to Natalie, a potter, and Pinch is a young boy. They live in Rome. I spent one of the best years of my life in Rome and I loved the author's vibrant and insightful portrait of the eternal city. You could tell he had spent a fair bit of time there and its rhythms and sights were a part of his lifeblood.
Pinch's idealisation of his father, at the cost of starving affection for his mother, begins early. His father has a kind of animal charm which allows him to pursue his megalomaniacal course without causing too many misgivings in his son. It's a fabulous portrait of the outrages an egotistical male with bags of charm can get away with. All Pinch's aspirations centre on earning his father's admiration, a problem that will follow him into adult life and will grow ever more complex after the novel's big twist.
For me The Italian Teacher was a thoroughly entertaining read. 4.5 stars.

[Theresa Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The moneyed all speak of art, the artists all speak of money.”

This is an unusual novel. Usually, the protagonist has a goal and has to overcome obstacles to achieve that goal. In this book, none of main characters are admirable. Bear Bavinsky is a celebrated artist when the story begins in 1955, but he treats the endless stream of women in his life like crap and ignores the seventeen children he has with wives and girlfriends and mistresses because he’s such an important artist he can’t be bothered.

One of his wives is Natalie, a potter who isn’t quite right in the head. Their son, Charles, or Pinch, has low self-esteem, in part thanks to Bear. Charles is the primary point of view in this book, and the fact that he muddles through life eking out a living as an Italian teacher makes him not particularly likeable.

The writing is choppy—it doesn’t flow. While the name dropping of great artists of the 20th century is interesting if you’re a fan of art history (which I am), it’s hard to root for characters who limp through life or are filled with self-importance.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book, which RELEASES MARCH 20, 2018.

For more reviews, please visit: http://www.theresaalan.net/blog

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

” Yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it’s better than drinkin’ alone”
Piano Man Songwriter: Billy Joel

There’s quite a bit of traveling about the world in this story from Rome to London, Toronto, New York, France, and Pennsylvania. There’s also a bit of traveling through time, as this begins in 1955, with stops along the way, and ending in 2018. There’s another journey, as well: to the world of Art, artists, and the journey to become a known, accomplished artist.

And a well-known, accomplished artist is what Bear Bavinsky has become as this story gets underway, married in his earlier years to Natalie, or Natty, as she is called by Bear, and eventually their son Charles comes along. Charles goes by the name of Pinch, a name his father bestowed upon him in his young years.

Bear is a self-absorbed, arrogant man, unconventional even in his outlook about his paintings and dismissive of the opinions of others. Those pieces he deems less than perfect are relegated to the fire-pit. His view toward his wife, then wives, is similar. When they’ve lost that shiny glow, he finds a newer model, finding many to choose from among those who model for him. He marries several times, fathers more children than I could keep track of, all of whom he tends to leave behind as easily as he departs from their mothers. Still, he needs to feel someone really sees him, someone who really sees him as he sees himself, who sees him in his art. That person is Pinch, who wants so desperately to be loved by his father that he tells Bear only that which he knows Bear wants to hear, confirming Bear’s opinions, decisions and, as he grows older, his talent.

As a boy, Pinch had dreamed of being an artist like his father, seeing the importance attached to Bear, the way others treated him as opposed to his mother, a sculptor. He wanted that, he wanted what his father wanted. To be seen as someone special. The fact that he received that from Natty, his mother, meant less and less as he grew older. Visting his father once with a newer wife and a house filled with children by the time he is able to visit, he shares a piece of his art he’d brought along to get Bear’s opinion. Bear’s response is soul-crushing, letting him know that he had no talent; he would never be an artist.

As he enters those decision-making years for post-university careers, he decides that he will write a book about his father’s career as an artist. He wants others to see the brilliance of the man. When that doesn’t really work out the way he planned, he changes to becoming a teacher, teaching Italian in London.

Through all these years, he becomes the one that Bear can consistently turn to, confide his fears in, look to for confirmation that his decisions are the right ones. That he is, in fact the only one he wants to have his estate, when he dies. Years away, of course, with the last years of his work never sold, never displayed, hidden away in a cottage in the middle of nowhere.

There are some surprise twists and turns to this story, and some subtle humour, and a lot of family squabbles and maybe even some subterfuge to keep things entertaining. A thought-provoking novel about families, about creativity, and the meaning of art, and the influence of the popularity of an artist’s work being the measure of its worth.

This is the first of Tom Rachman’s novels that I’ve read, so I can’t compare this to any of his others. I enjoyed this, I was engaged throughout despite the frustrations associated with reading this as an ePUB.

Many thanks for the ARC provided by First to Read

[Tammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rachman is a marvel. You meet the main character, Pinch, as a child and follow him throughout his life. Pinch’s father, Bear, is a negligent father, drinker and womanizer in addition to being a much admired and successful artist. As Rachman puts it, “But your relatives judge you relatively.” After trying and failing poor Pinch just can’t measure up to his father’s greatness and lives a small life, but he is determined to leave a legacy. How Pinch goes about doing this is brilliant.

Filled with warmth, humor and the very human frailties that plague us all, The Italian Teacher is a five (very bright) star read for me.

[Marialyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 gloriously written stars

Being a parent is a hard job, perhaps the hardest one out there. It requires one to be there always for another person, a guide, a mentor, a friend, a person whose love is never questioned. For Charles, also known as Pinch, the lack of his father's attention plays havoc with this young boy's life. Pinch is a shy boy, loved by his mother, Natalie, but forever seeking the attention and approval of his artist father, Bear Bavinsky.

Bear is a bigger than life artist, husband, lover to many woman, father to scores of children, but to Bear, art is the thing and his focus and his love is placed on a piece of canvas and paint. His human relationships mean nothing for he is a selfish man catering to his appetites and neglecting the son and all the rest of his seventeen children. Pinch is the son who so needs him. He idolizes his father and tries so very hard to win his affection. At one point in this poignant story, he shows his dad something he has painted and as we all hold our breath waiting for some affirmation, Bear tells him he will never be an artist. Bear keeps on slinging those arrows in Pinch's direction and ultimately throughout the boy's lifetime. Pinch will spend a lifetime, looking for one gesture, one word, one action that will show him that his father cares.

The story travels back and forth across the ocean as Bear moves about marrying and divorcing many, and Natalie, becomes more and more out of touch with reality. Pinch, grows and escapes as well to America and then onto London where he becomes a teacher of Italian. In the meantime, he falls in love, but his wife is so enamored with Bear that she creates conflict and eventually divorces Pinch. He has other friends but not the friend he truly needs and wants, his father.

This was a story of the inevitable harm a parent can do to a child. By being a father in name only, Bear destines Pinch always to think of himself as a failure.

We do meet some wonderful characters in this novel, ones that align themselves with Pinch, but ones that we are never quite sure if it is Pinch they want to be near or is it Bear? The ending of this tragic story comes eventually full circle as we see Pinch deciding his own fate and claiming some things for himself. Pinch remain conflicted his entire life, but as his life ends, he really does get the last laugh.

I want to thank Tom Rachman for wonderful writing, the publisher, and edelweiss for providing me with an advanced copy of this most moving novel.

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rachman presents a winning tale of a larger-than-life painter who schmoozes and blusters his way through the art scene, while his wife and son attempt to thrive in his shadow. Though none of the characters is particularly likable, they are all fascinating. Bear, the artist, oozes animal magnetism, and is hypercritical of his work: he burns the majority of the canvases he creates. Natalie, his much younger wife, is a ceramicist, though her artwork never takes off, and she resents being seen as just Bear's "current" paramour. Their son, Charles, nicknamed Pinch, grows up in this tumultuous household, taking it all in while trying to be his own person . . . whatever that may be.

As the decades fly by, his parents recede to background characters, and the novel looses a little steam, for poor Pinch is just not as interesting as mom and dad. Then, in the last third of the book, Pinch does something really, really bad (but funny), and the wait to see if, and when it's going to come back and bite him in the ass is quite fun. The ending was satisfying, somehow both snarky, and touching. Though I won't go the whole five stars for this one, I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a great read about the art world, and/or parent-child relationships.

[Trudie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a fairly excruciating read for me and perhaps I would have been better to DNF this after 50 pages as was my instinct, however since I was reading this for book club I was determined to finish it, maybe there would be some payoff in the ending ?. ( Urmmm no, not really )

One of my problems here was the writing style, the first 100 pages or more were inadvertently humorous, clunky word choices, overblown dialogue, characters either very dull (Pinch) or over the top caricatures. Case in point, Bear Bavinsky, a rambunctious, philandering artist that fathered 17 children and painted Shoulder IV and Hands XII becoming famous while showing almost no one his artwork. I could not get with this programme at all.

It is obvious this is just not my kind of book, nothing about it made a connection with me and so it is best to shrug it off and move onwards !

PS : - Shout out to the book cover designer, it is beautiful to behold and I am just grateful it did not feature one of Bavinsky's masterpiece body part close ups ;)

[Bam cooks the books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bear Bavinsky is an acclaimed American artist living in Rome in 1955 with his young Canadian wife Natalie and their little boy Charles, nicknamed Pinch. Bear is a huge man in both body and personality who is totally focused on his work: "My real life, it's when I'm working. It's entirely there. The rest--everything--is flimflam. And that's tragedy."

Bear is a perfectionist who burns any painting that displeases him. His vision for his art is that it should hang in museums where many people can admire his work, rather than belonging to private collectors.

Bear's magnum opus, his 'Life-Still' series, depicts women's body parts and was featured in Life magazine until a bare breast was noted (gasp!) and the magazine was forced to call back the issue. Was that why Bear left the NY art scene behind in favor of the company of Roman ex-pats?

On those rare occasions when Bear really focuses on his family, it's like the sun coming out on a gray day. He can be so charming and charismatic when he wants to be! Natalie, an inspiring artist herself, has lived in Bear's artistic shadow, content to be his muse, his inspiration. Pinch lives for those moments when Bear notices him and seems pleased with his son, so he feels the warmth of the sun at last.

But soon Bear is gone from their lives for good, gone back to America to marry another woman, to start a new family--did Natalie kick him out for his philandering ways? "Even if a man's important, he doesn't get to live by different rules."

Charlie wants a mission like his dad's so he works at developing his artistic skills while his mother returns to her potter's wheel. But when Charlie, now a teen, visits Bear in New York, Bear tells him something that will send his life in another direction entirely, for good or bad.

This is very much a character-driven story--very subtle and ironic. For all that I've just talked about Bear Bavinsky, this is really Charles' story. Can he come out from under the suffocating influence of his father, be a success in his own right, create meaningful, lasting friendships and find love?

Did I learn anything from this novel? Perhaps to be careful who your heroes are. Some have feet of clay.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the opportunity to read an arc of this new novel, my first taste of Tom Rachman's work.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

"'Because there's no malice in Dad. He's just that way. Like a huge ship, powering forward on his mission, and nobody can stop it.'

'I see,' Natalie notes, 'that you're still very engaged with Bear.'

He looks to the restaurant clock, irritated. Nobody likes to be understood without warning."

My goodness, was The Italian Teacher ever my kind of book. I didn't love it from the very first page - admittedly with a book about characters called Bear and Pinch I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to look past my hatred of quirky names long enough to actually pay attention to what I was reading - but once over that hurdle I settled into this easily and could not put it down.

The Italian Teacher follows the life of Charles 'Pinch' Bavinsky, the son of a renowned contemporary American artist, from infancy to adulthood. Pinch is a character who manages to be sympathetic, pitiable, and contemptible at all once, and it's interesting to watch this transition; at what point do we stop feeling for this neglected child and start hating the spineless man he becomes? Rachman never really answers that question and I love this novel all the more for that; this book is all about the sins of the father and the complicated, lasting, ugly effect they have on the son. Pinch idolizes his father, who the reader easily recognizes as arrogant and misogynistic, but Pinch is consumed with Bear's renown in the art world; likewise, he pities and fears becoming his luckless mother Natalie. To Pinch, Bear is success and Natalie is failure.

But the influence of Natalie can strongly be felt throughout the novel - in fact, she's the only one who calls Pinch by his nickname rather than his real name, Charles, but still he is 'Pinch' in the third-person narration. His mother is his sole confidante and only friend throughout his childhood, but still he abandons her as soon as he is able, driven by his tunnel vision to live a life worthy of his father's legacy. As he navigates life in his father's shadow, there's a wealth of commentary on art vs. the artist, and the cost of creative genius, that make this book a clever, entertaining, and deeply sad read.

Frankly I just loved everything about this. (Other than the characters' names.) I loved the setting in the first section of 1950s Rome because I used to live in Italy, I loved Rachman's clear knowledge of 20th century art because I studied the same thing in college and I cannot tell you how much I adored it, I loved that Pinch's favorite artist was Caravaggio because my favorite artist is Caravaggio, I loved these characters' complexity because I would choose depth over likability any day, I loved the sharp writing and wonderfully entertaining storytelling and the insight into the many themes that Rachman so expertly explored. This isn't going to be for everyone - namely, I'd advise you to avoid if you can't abide terrible, self-involved characters and you find discussions of art tedious - but this was just the perfect storm of everything I could want in a book, and I was so captivated by it.

[Faith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read and loved two books by this author and I was disappointed to find that I didn't love this one. I didn't hate it, but it was just ok for me. Bear Bavinsky was a larger than life painter who, for a while, was quite popular. He was also an irresponsible narcissist who had countless wives and girlfriends and 17 children. Bear's appeal to these women (other than his fame) was never made clear to me. The protagonist of this book is his son Pinch (Charles) who was the only child with whom Bear maintained regular contact. I suspect that is because Pinch continued to be awed by his father while the other children had more mixed feelings about him. Pinch grew up in Rome as the only child of his mother Natalie, a Canadian expat and unsuccessful potter.

Most of this book describes Pinch's drifting through life waiting for Bear to notice him. As a teenager he tries his hand at painting but gives it up at 16. Eventually he uses his knack for languages to become a teacher of Italian at a London school. It wasn't until the second half of this book that I developed any real interest in Pinch. He was an inert character until he made a decision that could throw the art world into a tizzy. The author makes some points about the inherent value of art and the right of artists to control their work, but for me that was all overshadowed by the fact that Bear was such an appalling human being and Pinch was such a boring one. I hope for a better reaction to the author's next book.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Claire Fuller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom Rachman strikes again. I loved this just as much as The Imperfectionists. Rachman is just so damn good at writing completely believable characters, those I love and those I hate. I listened to this read by Sam Alexander (who read it exceptionally well), and I loved it so much I'm going to have to buy the physical book.
It is the life of Charles (Pinch) Bavinsky, and we first meet him when he is five in his father's painting studio in Rome in 1960. Bear Bavinsky is a famous, philandering, egotistical, larger-than-life painter and Pinch is both terrified of him and in awe to him, and really remains so for the whole of his life. And yet although everyone crumples in the path of Bear - his several wives, his many children and so on - Pinch has the last laugh, although it's still not funny. For the most part Pinch's life is a sad one (the cover might say this book has some dark humour, but I didn't find it), solitary, unfulfilled, dissatisfied, but so real. I wanted to shake him. I loved him.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the writing in The Italian Teacher, and appreciated Pinch as a detailed and authentically flawed character, but I couldn’t seem to engage with the story until about the last third of the book.

Nearly his entire life Pinch has pursued approval from the one person who is too self-important to ever grant it -- his father, artist Bear Bavinsky. Though Pinch is ten times the person Bear is, he lives in obscurity, kept there in large part by the man he admires most.

Nonetheless, what Pinch undertakes in the final turn of the story is brilliant and, quite frankly, extremely satisfying. I’m only going to say that it got me thinking about the way different people handle life’s wins and losses. Are you compelled to share a hard-won accomplishment that makes you proud of yourself? Do you do it for the accolades and public opinion, or is it enough to simply know what you are capable of and take pride in that? Can you truly be an artist and not crave critical approbation? The answer is a matter of opinion but in my view, Pinch got it just right.

”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.”

A worthwhile, thought-provoking read to be sure, but lacking a certain depth and grip that I need for a higher rating.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Italian Teacher” confirms Rachman’s reputation as a shepherd of lost souls. It tells the story of Pinch, a man whose whole life is overshadowed by his father, the great 20th-century artist Bear Bavinsky. Bear is a fictional character, but Rachman takes scissors and paste to the museum catalogue just as Rachel Kushner did in her wonderful 2013 novel, “The Flamethrowers.” He paints Bear so cleverly into the canon of contemporary art that you may feel like you must have seen one of his still-lifes at the National Gallery. Art Forum magazine “extols his cult status among those returning to figurative art.”

Kinder than Picasso but just as philandering, Bear inflates his status by burning almost all his work except for a few dozen masterpieces. As framed by Rachman, he’s that most enchanting breed of celebrity: the artist who rejects celebrity status. Bear entices wealthy clientele and gallery owners by dismissing them. “You won’t like this,” he tells a crowd of fawning admirers, “but I never painted to get on the walls of some palace.” In the trompe l’oeil of Rachman’s satire, the pretensions of the art world seem to reach off the page. He draws the academic leeches glommed onto others’ talents, the clueless collectors hoping to buy their way to tastefulness, and especially the art gallery fiends with “white faces, asymmetrical haircuts, interesting glasses.”

The novel opens in the mid-1950s, when little Pinch is living with his mother, a potter, in Rome. Bear com. . . .

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[Chrissie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can see that many will enjoy this novel, but it did not fit me. I will explain why in the hope that you may determine if perhaps it will fit you.

We follow the lives of Bear Bavinsky, an artist, and Charles Bavinsky, his son. Charles is born in 1950 and we follow him from his childhood in Rome through to his death in 2011. His father dies a decade earlier. Loose ends are tied up and the book concludes with a retrospective of Bear’s artwork at Tate Gallery in 2018. Along the way readers visit Rome, London, Paris, the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France, Toronto, New York City, Westchester County in New York State and Key West. Through the passage of years and different settings, varied milieus are drawn with the backdrop of the latter half of the 20th century. However, only Rome came alive for me. This is strange since I have lived in NYC, Westchester and France, Charles’ year of birth is a year before mine and I too am acquainted with the other cities in which he resides.

Art is a central them, but the emphasis is more on the financial and legal aspects of it rather than its artistic side. It is less about the creative impetus of art then how it is sold, marketed and advertised. I would have preferred focus on the former rather than the latter.

A second theme is the father / son relationship encompassing love and hate, admiration and jealousy, the urge to both follow in the footsteps of and spurn his father as a role model. Father and son mirror each other in some aspects and yet have totally different personality traits too. One is loud and boisterous, the other much less confident. Both run through women as water runs through a sieve. I never felt close or came to care for any of the characters. No, not one, neither the women nor the men! If I am to care about what happens to them, I need to understand them, and for this I needed more depth. I felt no empathy for the characters. The choices they made totally confounded me; to me, their choices were nonsensical.

Although the father / son relationship is a central theme, the story is more what happens to them, how disputes are resolved and how one action leads to another than character analysis. The flow of events is cinematic, particularly as the story reaches the end. I am not in love with such writing; other people eat it up. Action and thrills are not my cup of tea; analysis and thinking are what I prefer.

I can give the novel two stars only due to the fact that there are quite a few good lines, i.e. lines that capture how modern society functions or how different types of people behave and think. Here follow a few I appreciated:

“…or is art just the refuge of those who cannot connect?”

“Popularity is a tan. It fades when out of the light.” This is in reference to the profitable sale of art.

Rob’s hair and mustache are described as, “groomed as a French formal garden.” He is the homosexual partner of Marsden.

“One of the worst aspects of illness is the talk of illness.” A character notes this as he dies of cancer.

In relation to communication on internet is said—(it is) “so much easier to connect when you cannot touch.” This I disagree with, but the line did have me thinking.

“I was so busy winning an argument with Dad, I never came to know him.” Charles is speaking.

“Even if a man is good, he doesn’t get to live by different rules.”

“He is in his ‘anecdotage’.” Said of Bear when in his old age he loved telling anecdotes of earlier years.

Bear says he is starving. Natalie responds, “I am not entirely edible.” The addition of that one word ‘entirely’ does make a difference!

Some lines are simply clever, others are amusing and many make you think.

I feel the narrator of the autdiobook reads the lines too quickly. To appreciate the lines, you need time to think. The narrator of the audiobook is Sam Alexander. I honestly believe that others will like his narration more than I have. I dislike dramatization, and he dramatizes all the roles. The volume was too low for the whispering and too loud for the shouting. My rating of his performance is two stars; it was OK because I could hear most of the lines and a few of his character personifications did have me laughing.

Often contemporary writing fails me, as it does here. Perhaps because I dislike cinematics and action-oriented books. I prefer more contemplative writing. I do not enjoy having the annoying attributes of modern day life detailed; I am already well aware of them! I found the telling too melodramatic and without adequate depth. Finally, that said about art did not speak to me.

[Meike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this book are rather placative, some lack logical stringency, and it's generally too long - but I can't deny that I enjoyed reading it, and that it contains many smart thoughts on the dynamics of art and fame. Our protagonist Charles is the son of infamous painter Bear Bavinsky and his third wife, and in this novel, we are following him through his whole life (and even beyond that). "Pinch", as he is called by his family, adores his father and tries everything to impress him, but Bear is - quite obviously to the reader - a ruthless egomaniac who sees everyone around him as a means to his ends, arguing that indulging his passions (mainly sex, manipulation and vanity) equals perfecting his art. For much of the novel, it seems like the abusive Bear will at some point manage to psychologically destroy aspiring painter and art critic Pinch who goes on behaving like a teenager looking for approval for far too long - until Rachman serves us a plot twist, and a really brilliant one.

Rachman brings up many prototypical questions regarding art: Is Bear a genius or a monster - or both? Do artists have the right to be terrible? What roles do the market, the press, trends and the galleries play when it comes to creating a star? How is the value of a piece of art determined? Charles always mirrors himself in his parents (his mother being a failed potter), and roams all over the Western world looking for a way to find his own voice - frantically learning languages, moving from his native Italy to Canada, the home country of his mother, to the US, the home country of his father, and then to London, frequently traveling to France, where his father has a studio in the remote countryside.

All his achievements seem mediocre to him (and many others), not because they objectively are, but because he is judged in comparison to his father. At the same time, Rachman smartly points out that Bear is also dependent on outside factors he can hardly influence when it comes to assessing the importance of his work, which takes a toll on him as well. After the first half of the book, in which reading about Pinch's extremely submissive attitude can become quite annoying, the tortured son finds a way to slowly gain control over his domineering father, and it's only then when the story becomes truly intriguing: It turns into a non-stereotypical revenge tale, exciting and fun to read.

This book about the art world does not play in the same league as Houellebecq's "The Map and the Territory", but it's well worth the read.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles “Pinch” Bavinsky is just an Italian teacher, though as a boy in Rome in the 1950s–60s he believed he would follow in the footsteps of his sculptor mother and his moderately famous father, Bear Bavinsky, who painted close-ups of body parts. When this dream was shattered, he turned to criticism, getting art history degrees and planning to preserve his father’s reputation by writing his authorized biography. But along the way something went wrong. We follow Pinch through the rest of his life, a sad one of estrangement, loss and misunderstandings – but ultimately there’s a sly triumph in store for the boy who was told that he’d never make it as an artist.

Like The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, Rachman’s new novel jets between lots of different places – Rome, New York City, Toronto, rural France, London – and ropes in quirky characters in the search for an identity and a place to belong. Although I preferred the early chapters when Pinch is a child – these have some of the free-wheeling energy of The Imperfectionists – this is a rewarding novel about the desperation to please, or perhaps exceed, one’s parents and the legacy of artists in a fickle market. Memorable quotes abound; too many to mention here.

Existing Rachman fans will certainly want to read this, but for those who are new to his work I’d particularly recommend this to fans of Daniel Kehlmann’s F and Dominic Smith’s The Last Painting of Sara de Vos.

[Julie]

This is one of those "life is too short" moments in deciding to give this book a pass. I'm choosing not to spend time with narcissistic men, either in print or in real life. Thanks, but no.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a warm-hearted tale of a son trying his whole life to make his relationship with his father work towards a healthy balance for his own identity. In addition to insights about the psychology of fathers and sons, the story told provides a great window on the interplay between authentic creativity in art and its corruption by the incestuous enterprises of marketing, journalism, and academic study.

Charles (“Pinch”) grows up in Rome in the 50s and 60s with his loving mother Natalie, who is a talented potter, and, for the preteen years, with his father Bear Bavinsky. Bear is a famous artist, portrayed nicely by Rachman as one of those larger-than-life personalities with a huge ego but ample charm and charisma. To Pinch, he is like a virtual god bestowing a sense of life in his soul whenever he is blessed to be in his vivid, vivacious presence. But great art calls for great concentration and intense work, which results in many broken promises to be with Pinch. Plus, Bear is an inveterate womanizer, fathering many children as he moves from relationship to relationship.

Pinch is heroic to me for doing his damned best to take the good and leave the bad. A sad part for me is how Bear inspires Pinch to get art training and develop the ambition to follow in his footsteps, yet when finally pressured to look at his work, his causal dismissal of any signs of talent leads Pinch to abandon art for many years. But he still carries the respect for his father’s mission and integrity in destroying all work he judges not to be “great” and choosing to sell only to publicly accessible museums and not galleries that supply private collections. After getting a dose of the absurdities of art fashion and trends in criticism in an art program in college in Toronto, Pinch enters a period of drift. He is discouraged at how many of his friends, including his first girlfriend, try to exploit him to get knowledge about or access to his father.

Pinch eventually settles in London and survives by taking on work at a language school teaching Italian. I feel there is some kind of metaphor here about the value of speaking and listening to diverse people and the art of translation across minds as a key to surviving the challenges life deals him (and us the readers). Meanwhile, his continuing loyalty to his father and attempts to please him during visits to his rural cottage and studio in France pays off when Bear assures him of his favored status among his kids and assigns him as executor for the disposition of his cache of paintings hidden in his studio after his death. In the surprising ending Pinch finds an outrageous and creative solution to honor his father’s wishes, be fair to his many half-siblings, and fulfill his own artistic talents. I loved to see his frozen heart melted and its twists uncurled toward the ending of this engaging saga.

The prose of this book is plain and does not strive for lyricism or melodramatic flourishes about the creative process. But the dialog was fresh and lively with plenty of subtle or ironic humor. For example, here Natalie, years after she kicked Bear out for philandering, comments on her acceptance of Bear’s selfishness as a key to his success:
”…‘I’ll hate the public before they hate me!’ Oh. Poor Bear.” A half smile. “I’ve never been able to get mad at your father. Why is that?”
“Because there’s no malice in Dad. He’s just that way. Like a huge ship, powering forward on his mission, and nobody can stop it.”

As another sample, here Pinch and girlfriend from art school question a friend at a gallery exhibit of radical art in the vein of Mapplethorpe about his experiences in a California arts program:

“If I had to say in one word, I’d go with ‘pretty unreal,’ actually.
…It occurs to Pinch that, unless somebody takes control, they risk exchanging vapidities for the next half hour. “We’d like to hear how it was studying there. Could one learn, say, how to paint? Is that possible?”
“Painting is repetition at this point, right?
“Are there life drawing classes?”
“Maybe. But it’s more free-flow. It’s about finding your own subversion, right? You bring work in for crit, and see what gets born. But nobody’s judging. It’s pretty antifascist that way.”
…Barrow asks, “Sorry, Temple, just to be clear, what do they teach?”
“Well, you can’t teach art. You either fake it. Or you fake it. Right?”
“Temple’s mentor was John Baldessari,” Marsden notes. “He’s the one who did that video piece, ‘Teaching a Plant the Alphabet.’ “
“Does the plant get its MFA at the end?” Pinch asks.

Based on this experience, I look forward to tracking down Rachman’s 2010 novel, “The Imperfectionists.” This book was provided for review by Penguin Random House through the First-to-Read program.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this certainly fits the classification and form of a novel, it feels an awful lot like a film screenplay in book form. With so many characters painted using broad brushstrokes, and a steady flow of scenes that are saturated in visual imagery, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Rachman wrote this with thoughts of a movie deal in the back of his mind. And more power to him because this could make a very good flick.

I'm glad I stuck with it but must confess to having been a bit hot-and-cold for the first half. The portrayal of Bear, this larger-than-life, bombastic figure who sucks all of the oxygen from every room he's in, was hard to...well...bear. He's grandiose, narcissistic, and an intolerable phoney yet even the most withdrawn, sardonic characters manage to adore him. He's the Ghost of Christmas Past if said spectre refused to leave; lots of fun for the first ten minutes but a real boor beyond that. However Rachman does use this to great advantage and ultimately one is forced to admit that he has his reasons for asking the reader to endure hundreds of pages of smarmy sycophants fawning over this pompous, sadistic ass.

Most main characters are similarly created from dramatic color palettes. Caravaggio, Oscar Wilde, Paul Gaugin, and other notoriously big personalities all contribute character traits and behavioral quirks to Bear Bavinsky, Marsden McClintock, Eva Petros, etc. I think there's more than a little of Betty Woodman in Natalie, for example. Fortunately this author is also deft when sketching out more minor characters and those finer touches bring real life to a story that would otherwise be a bit too high-octane to burn steadily. Overall I quite enjoyed it.

This is the first non-Booker ToB finalist I have encountered thus far that undeniably deserves its spot. A lovely oasis in what has otherwise been a reading desert.

[Katie Long · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good story and a nice, light read, but I’m afraid I didn’t find it to be much more than that. Everything about it seemed only skin deep. From the plot to the characterization there was so much more to develop and explore that it feels like a missed opportunity. #TOB2019

[Vartika · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been a while since I've read a novel so beautifully wrought, right from the deftness of characterisation to the breathtaking realism of plot and prose.

This one follows the life of Charles "Pinch" Bavinksy, the eponymous Italian teacher who, although now living a charmless life, once harboured dreams of following in the footsteps of his father: the great Bear Bavinsky, one of the most revered and celebrated artistic figures of the twentieth century. When the latter—who is oft compared to rival Picasso in the novel, both in terms of cultural impact and proclivity for philandering—spurns the child of his ambition, Pinch takes to art history and criticism, aiming perhaps to immortalise the artist in a biography if not become him.

Yet things fall through, and we follow Pinch through his disaffected tumble through adulthood—he is a portrait of loneliness, sustaining loss and continually seeking his father's approval—until vindication syly comes for the man who, as a boy, was told he could never make it as an artist. As a reader, you may often find yourself making assumptions as to how this would happen, but you know nothing, and there will always be surprises.

Portrait of an Artist by David Hockney (1972)

Consider this book narrative commentary on the art world: The Italian Teacher takes on the idea of what it takes to be an artist in our world, and pairs it with questions of accountability and posterity, and of how we determine what great art really is. The underlying premise is that personality and talent go hand-in-hand on the road to fame, and we get to evaluate this closely in Pinch, who, although the very same blood as Bear, is quite his opposite. The idea of the muse and their position in the tradition of "great" art is also considered here, in the character of Natalie, a Canadian ceramicist whose own art, similar to that of the likes of real-life figures like Dora Maar and Josephine Nivison-Hopper, is overshadowed by and subordinated to the role she plays in that of the great male artist (Natalie is Bear's third wife and mother to Pinch, who is terrified of becoming her).

Self Portrait by Jo Hopper. The Whitney Museum discarded most of her paintings and very few remain to this day.

In fact, this book is an indictment of the mythmaking of the art world, and the ways in which art is celebrated, valued, and commodified. By nestling these issues amidst a psychologically propulsive story about our behaviour, relationships, and society, Tom Rachman does in The Italian Teacher what the world he criticises fails or neglects to do: recentering the human. This applies to his characters, too, of whom even the most peripheral are given substance and dimension.

All this and more makes this book so remarkable and wholly unputdownable. Some quotes:

"Nobody likes to be understood without warning."

"The older I get, the more I prefer craft. With craft, you know if a piece is right. Is the pot so cumbersome that the farmer's wife couldn't lift it? Is my glaze poisonous? A pot is either correct, or is not. Whereas art is never quite good or bad. Art is simply a way of saying 'opinion'."

"There's always a gap between what the object is and what the picture isn't. And that gap...that's where the art is."

[Marchpane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A breezy, undemanding read, The Italian Teacher is not fluffy enough to qualify as pure escapist fun, but it's still kind of light and inconsequential. For me this would have been better if it had devoted more time to the side characters rather than the ineffectual and bland protagonist Pinch, whose life story this is.

The book says a few clever things about the art world, but I didn’t feel like they were particularly original insights and overall, Rachman’s position seems to be a wholly cynical one. From artists to critics to dealers and collectors, these characters use art for mercantile or narcissistic purposes (or both). The artists all seek fame and/or admiration; the hangers-on want the financial or reputational advantages that come by association. What matters is the ‘name’ on the work, not its quality and the right publicity can make (or break) a name. I’m not suggesting that Rachman is wrong about this – the art world probably teems with such jaded individuals – but I wish there had been a tiny glimmer somewhere of art serving a nobler purpose. If just one minor side character had acknowledged the simple joy of creative endeavour, of art for its own sake, I might be more on board.

Overall, reading The Italian Teacher was a pleasant enough experience, but it didn’t make a strong impression on me, and like The Imperfectionists before it, will probably fade from my memory before very long.

[Neale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles “Pinch” Bavinsky has found it impossible to find his way out of his father’s shadow. Lost in its darkness his entire life. The Italian Teacher is basically his life story. His father, Bear Bavinsky, is a famous painter of still life who shuns celebrity and yet paradoxically is an extrovert, gregarious and charming once starting up a conversation. A perfectionist who burns the paintings that do not reach his impossibly high standards, and lives by the philosophy of art for art’s sake. This story however is all about his son. What a character. Pinch, for most of the novel. makes it very hard, if not impossible, for the reader to warm to him. With very little self-confidence, his fear of failure is neurotic. He lies, is rude, hubristic and grating. The novel covers his entire life span starting in the 1950’s and it is during these early years that we find Pinch at his most likable. His mother proves a counter balance to the father, encouraging and supporting his dream to become an artist like his father. it is during his college years where the psychological damage begins, and his first major failure will take place. Pinch is devastated when his father, after appraising a painting that he has lovingly painted and is extremely proud of, tells him that he will never be an artist. This proves to be a catalyst for the following failures of his life which seem to follow and at times it becomes painful reading about Pinch’s constant setbacks. Although the heart of the story is Pinch’s life, there is a wonderful story, full of suspense, deceit and theft, that unfolds involving his father’s collection kept in secrecy from the world. Rachman does a remarkable job of taking the reader into the Art world. The painters, the critics, the galleries. It all culminates in a wonderful ending. I simply adored this book and I can’t wait to read all of Rachman’s work. 5 Stars.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Italian Teacher is destined to be one of my favorite reads of the year.

Tom Rachman's character Pinch is the son of a philandering, larger-than-life artist, Bear Bavinsky. Bear is charming and unreliable.

Pinch spends his entire life trying to get his dad's attention and approval. He imitates his dad, smoking a pipe early. In a one day lesson Bear teachers Pinch the fundamentals of painting and Pinch dreams of following in his father's footsteps.

Bear abandons Pinch and his mother, once his model, for the next model to pose for him; he leaves a string of women behind him and seventeen neglected children.

Bear routinely destroys any canvas he deems subpar. And he decides to stop selling or showing his art, a plan to drive up the values of his canvases. He becomes a legend, a tantalizing mystery in the art world.

Pinch feels a failure, unable to get what he needs from Bear. He flounders through his life, searching for an achievement that would finally elicit real love and approval from his father. His dissertation is on Caravaggio because his father once praised him; his dad doesn't remember doing so. Pinch ends up teaching Italian and foreign languages in London.

Not only is he unable to settle on a career, he loses his college girlfriend when she agrees to pose nude for Bear, which drives Pinch crazy: he knows his dad too well. He later marries a woman and again is too possessive and loses her. He finally moves in with a coworker, sharing a house.

His college friend Marsden comes in and out of his life, but is always reliable and can be counted on.

Too late, Bear corrects Pinch: he never said Pinch was a bad artist, just that he didn't have the personality and selfishness to BE an artist.

Pinch's life is sad, miserable, and heartbreaking. So, you ask me, why would you ever want to read this book about a loser? The story has an unexpected turn and a truly comedic ending

Of all his children, Bear chooses Pinch to be his confidence man, even leaving his estate and paintings to him. He believes Pinch understands and supports his intention.

Pinch hatches a scheme that is the greatest scam of all time, a joke on the whole world of art, a way to keep his seventeen half-siblings happy, and still keep his promise to his dad.

And then...another reversal gives Pinch a place in the art world he so desperately desired. The novel left me laughing. It is a brilliant reversal.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel duty bound to start this review with the caveat that from the start it was clear that this was not a book for me. I won't dwell too long on my lengthy list of misgivings with this novel, suffice to say I found the characters both insufferable and flat (with the exception of a couple of neglected but complex minor players), and ultimately I couldn't bring myself to care about anything that was happening. Rachman saved himself from one star territory by touching on some interesting ideas about art, which could have been explored with much more depth. This could be a sign that books about art and I don't belong together. Or this could just be a really average book. I look forward to Milkman slaying this in the opening round of TOB19.

[Kingofmusic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genial konstruiert, mit Irrungen und manchen Wirrungen versetzt, letztlich aber eine von vorne bis hinten stimmige und "runde" Geschichte!