#29 How to Paint a Dead Man, by Sarah Hall (Faber and Faber Limited)

Considering there are three deaths, a supposed rape, adultery and plenty of art in Sarah Hall’s How to Paint a Dead Man, it’s a shame that the book is merely absorbing rather than gripping.

The blurb on the reverse of the novel, which was longlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for those people who care about such things, describes the book as a ‘fierce and brilliant study of art and its place in our lives’. That it is, but unfortunately the work never quite breaks out from that niche to fully engage and interest the reader.

At this point, I should declare an interest: I’ve never really ‘got’ art, in terms of paintings at least, which is this book’s primary focus. I studied elements of it at university, I don’t mind visiting the occasional gallery and I like to think I can appreciate fine works, but I always feel like I’m missing something in a way that never occurs to me when I watch a film, read a book, interpret a dance etc.

Perhaps this wasn’t the book for me then, but despite my baggage listed above, I did enjoy it. A neat device sees events snapping half a century described in sequence by the four main characters, and this introduces a serial element as you wait to get back to each individual tale. What’s more, as the novel progresses, you come to see how the lives of the older characters influence and affect those that follow.

How to Paint a Dead Man is a novel which prefers to linger on the languid brush stroke of life itself rather than focus on the detail of an image or a life, and in that regard, it’s certainly an intelligent piece of work. However, I’m a detail kind of guy.

So, rating time:

#29 How to Paint a Dead Man, by Sarah Hall (Faber and Faber Limited) - 7/10

Next up: Penguins Stopped Play, by Harry Thompson (John Murray Publishers)

Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating