During his own crisis of faith, when he had let his paints go dry for a decade, he had written a novel, a Henry Miller–like romp about a middle-aged artist who sleeps with his models. An editor at Knopf had encouraged him, but after three drafts and no contract, Arnold put it away. Soon after we became lovers, he gave me the pages and asked if I agreed with his editor’s criticisms. At seventeen, I thought the novel was marvelous just as it was.

I read it again, this time with the cold critical eye of a twenty-one-year-old. The tone wasn’t at all as I remembered it—droll and wise. The narration was therapeutic and the story indulgent in a way that his paintings never were. I might never paint as brilliantly as him, but I knew I could tell a more original story.