This is the first novel I've read by Peter Heller, but it won't be the last! I've never fly fished but I felt like I was knee deep in the rushing water with a reel over my shoulder. I've never painted but I held the brush, smelled the pigment and the turpentine and felt the satisfaction of art well done. I've never killed a man, but felt the horror of it. Heller made me feel like I was knee deep in all of this alongside his protagonist, the troubled and complicated painter, Jim Stegner. Reading this novel was "living in the stream of eternity", stepping outside of myself. And what an accomplishment that is.
A masterpiece!