RACHMAN TAKE READERS TO 1950S ITALY FOR LATEST BOOK
Vancouver-raised, award-winning author Tom Rachman, the author behind the bestselling 2010 novel The Imperfectionists, is back with his fourth literary offering: The Italian Teacher.
Released March 24, the novel tells the story of the son of a great painter who tries to get out of his larger-than-life father’s shadow and create his own story. Beginning in 1950s Rome and travelling ahead decades to London the novel is a crisp, bright read of family dynamics that is both melancholy and fun.
Rachman, who calls London home, will be in Vancouver on Monday for a Vancouver Writers Fest Incite event at 7:30 p.m. at Vancouver Public Library’s main branch.
Postmedia caught up with Rachman and asked him a few questions.
Q: Your past novels had the newspaper and book worlds as backdrops. What attracted you to the art world for this one? A: The lives of creative types have long fascinated me. What do they do all day? Why do so many end up with chaotic lives? Are the greats a different breed than the rest of us? Or do they simply get away with outrageous behaviour? With this novel, I wanted to offer a glimpse into the secret lives of artists.
Q: What is your experience with this world?
A: I spent the past few years infiltrating corners of the art world. I studied drawing and painting, had a potter in France teach me how to throw, interviewed successful artists and unsuccessful ones too, attended gallery openings, chatted with professional art advisers, read countless bios of famed artists. What I discovered was intriguing, and hair-raising too. Q: The expat experience looms large in this story, what is it about that reality that is so rich for authors? A: Writers thrive as outsiders. Or maybe it’s that outsiders long to put their thoughts into written words. Anyway, expat life is by nature detached. You’ll never belong to the foreign land where you reside. Nor, in time, do you fit in your home country. So you become a rootless observer, a most fruitful perspective for authors (and for artists too).
Q: Speaking of expats, Bear reminded me of Ernest Hemingway, large in stature and appetites. Is that fair? A: Bear definitely shares that old-fashioned bluster and bullish (or bearish) machismo. I didn’t model Bear on Hemingway, but I could see the two boozing together, and probably ending the night in fisticuffs.
Q: The father-and-son relationship between Bear and Pinch is further complicated by Bear’s success. Why did you want to explore this dynamic? A: Those who attain glory in the arts — I mean at the highest level of renown — are treated as a sanctified class, supposedly with access to divine inspiration, as if they were secular saints. I’m suspicious of this, and the book reveals why. But idolatry of great artists, whether justified or not, can expand their egos to frightening levels. Many of them (and
their the consequences. families, above all) suffer
Q: It’s hard to not feel bad for Pinch every time he is let down by his father or can’t live up to the myth of his father. When you were writing this did you ever want to make it easier for Pinch? A: On the contrary, I made it harder! I think that’s part of storytelling. You conjure up a fraught situation, then make it tenser still.
Q: Did anything surprise you about these characters when you were writing them, giving them a story? A: It’s in the telling that a story and its characters take form. If you’re not sometimes startled and churned up by what’s transpiring on the page before you, you’re not doing it right.
Q: The book begins in the 1950s with Bear already famous. Do you think the concept of fame has changed since then? A: Fame has become the most desirable condition for so many people. It’s also increasingly detached from merit. Indeed, those with fame in greatest measure (Kim Kardashian, say) have often contributed nothing of note. In any era, a society that reveres the unaccomplished is a corrupted place.
Q: The story spans a few decades. Is there a period you most enjoyed writing about?
A: My two favourites were the ’50s and the late-hippie period. The ’50s because I grew up devoted to old movies, so enjoyed writing its language and buttoned-up ways. The early ’70s because my generation (I was born in 1974) grew up in the hippies’ shaggy shadow; it was sweet revenge to skewer their sillier aspects.
Q: Did The Imperfectionists get made into a TV series?
A: It’s “in development,” which translates as: Nobody has yet hollered “Action!” but entertainment types keep promising to do so. The producers are aiming to start shooting in the next couple of years; we’ll see. But I think it’ll appear someday.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Sorry — I’m always secretive about ongoing work.
Q: When you get a chance to come back to Vancouver, are there any things that you must do when here? A: I try to visit Irori, a favourite sushi restaurant in Kitsilano run by a most delightful staff. If possible, I eat at Miku downtown too, get dim sum, and buy warm bagels from Siegel’s at Granville Island Market. (I’m realizing that my every response is food — you can tell I’m answering around meal time.) Above all, I look forward to my parents’ company. Oh, and did I mention my mother’s unbeatable cooking?