THE ITALIAN TEACHER
Book explores creativity
The Italian Teacher Tom Rachman Doubleday
The coffee cup in front of Tom Rachman is empty, but he’s examining its dregs as though they might offer some clue about the future of the novel.
“I’m not that confident, particularly at this moment in time,” he says after a moment of silence. “But of course, there are so many things that are worrying.”
For example, Donald Trump’s divided United States — a topic that last year triggered Basket of Deplorables, Rachman’s critically praised collection of satirical short stories.
But now it’s the art of the novel closest to the heart of this ex-Vancouverite. His latest, The Italian Teacher, arrives this month — preceded by acclaim from the likes of Kirkus Reviews and Publisher’s Weekly. Rachman, whose previous novel, The Imperfectionists, was an international bestseller, has now turned to the world of art and the poignant relationship between a great painter and the son who yearns to win his father’s love and trust.
The Italian Teacher spans a lifetime, its narrative sweep typifying the kind of fiction that Rachman, 43, fears may be in jeopardy.
“When it comes to the novel’s future, I’m ambivalent because I see all kinds of possible disaster,” he says. “So many forms of popular entertainment have diluted one’s attention span so much that it’s hard for many people who actually love fiction to complete a story of more than two pages without checking their phone and being distracted — which at the very least will have an effect on the kind of fiction being created. And ultimately it may make it very hard for us to compete at all.”
But Rachman tries to remain positive. The Italian Teacher celebrates the virtues of good, old-fashioned storytelling — and “maybe that’s the one thing that survives every single trend.”
Its opening pages introduce us to a boy named Pinch who worships his larger-than-life father, Bear Bavinsky, an internationally renowned painter who cares far more about his art than the human beings drawn into his orbit.
Pinch’s yearning for his father’s approval persist even after Bear has abandoned his 15-year-old boy and mentally fragile second wife.
Leaving them in Italy, Bear returns to the United States, where he acquires a third wife, continues his womanizing and will eventually father 17 children.
Bear, both a charismatic charmer and a selfish narcissist, keeps his son in thrall even as he continues to disregard Pinch’s emotional needs, to the point of crushing the boy’s own artistic ambitions by passing cruel judgment on his early paintings.
Rachman is at ease chatting about art — admitting he experienced much pleasure writing some wickedly satirical chapters about the pretensions of contemporary art.
“I love modern art,” he says, “but I have a lot of reservations about contemporary art.”
As for Bear: “Within the context of art history, he’d definitely be a modern artist — and a great one.” But does Rachman like him? “I think that since the novel is about Bear and Pinch and Pinch is terribly hurt by Bear, then I am more sympathetic to Pinch.” Rachman chooses his words carefully. “But I think that Bear is an extremely compelling character.
“I think one of the interesting things here is about the likability, or even the morality and decency, of a character like Bear. Is it necessary to be a bad person to be a good artist? After all, we know many artists who have behaved reprehensibly — so there’s an interesting dichotomy between how one’s family may view that person and how the public does.”
There’s something of the nomad in Rachman. He was born in London, and moved with his parents to Vancouver when he was seven. “So I think my sense of identity was a bit muddled early on!” As a student at University of Toronto, he knew he wanted to write fiction, but didn’t feel he had yet lived the kind of life that would make that possible. Somewhat unwillingly, he gravitated to journalism. He found himself in Rome reporting for The Associated Press, but he was gearing up to fulfil his fictional ambitions. “So I quit that job in Rome and moved to Paris to write fiction. But then I ran out of money so took this desk job at the International Herald-Tribune.”
The Herald-Tribune job was something of a sweetheart deal — six months working full time and then six months off so he could write. That arrangement led to The Imperfectionists, an entertaining look at the lively world of an English-language newspaper in Rome — and a “book of the year” citation from The New York Times.