The Painter [Paperback]

An Oprah.com Must-Read Book

After having shot a man in a Santa Fe bar, the famous artist Jim Stegner served his time and has since struggled to manage the dark impulses that sometimes overtake him.  Now he lives a quiet life. . . until the day that he comes across a hunting guide beating a small horse, and a brutal act of new violence rips his quiet life right open. Pursued by men dead set on retribution, Jim is left with no choice but to return to New Mexico and the high-profile life he left behind, where he’ll reckon with past deeds and the dark shadows in his own heart. 

Breathtakingly good. . . A darkly suspenseful page turner.” —The Richmond Times-Dispatch
 
Suspense with literary chops. . . . A brilliant page-turner about an artist with a dark streak. —Reader's Digest
 
“A moving story about love, celebrity, and the redemptive power of art.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
Heart-thumping . . . culminating in an ingeniously played final twist. —The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
 
“A taut tale of anger, revenge and inspiration.” —Dallas Morning News
 
“Amazing. . . . The contrast between serene nature and extreme action madeThe Dog Starssuch a sensation. Heller uses it again well inThe Painter.” —TheMiami Herald

“[A] carefully composed story about one man’s downward turning life in the American West. . . . Beautiful near-visionary descriptions.” —The Boston Globe
 
“[Heller’s] stories are of a classic type: unusual men, the kind we can identify with even if we’re not painters or pilots, thrust into unusual, even tragic situations. Yet at heart, these men are not so different than those we know.” —Santlcl