The Painter

Jim Stegner is a celebrated painter with a violent past. Years ago he shot a man in a Santa Fe bar, and after serving his sentence he has worked hard to keep a dangerous temper in check. These days he lives quietly, away from the attention his art once brought him. That calm ends when he comes upon a hunting guide beating a small horse. What Jim does next is savage, and it sets off consequences he cannot undo. Men who want payback are soon on his trail, and he is forced to give up his hiding place. The only way forward leads back to New Mexico and the public life he left behind. There he has to face what he has done and the darkness in himself that he has never fully tamed. Peter Heller, author of The River and The Dog Stars, tells the story of a man whose life keeps turning downward in the American West.