A beautifully touching portrait of that most difficult person to write about one blessed with gifts beyond what we can imagine for ourselves (which might be an alternate definition of prodigy or of genius). Ruthann Moyer not only brings her great uncle to life on the page, but helps us, the ordinary reader, to both luxuriate in his gift and to identify with him to understand him so well he really doesn’t seem quite so beyond us. Which is a notable and quite reader-friendly achievement. As a bonus, Moyer deftly portrays the early and mid-2Oth-century worlds of America and Europe (both seemingly far removed from the current state of affairs) in which an artistic savant makes his way.
