Synopsis
The Master tells the story of Henry James, an American-born genius of the modern novel who becomes a connoisseur of exile, living among artists and aristocrats in Paris, Rome, Venice and London. Colm Toibin captures the exquisite anguish of a man whose artistic gifts made his career a triumph but whose private life was haunted by loneliness and longing.
The Washington Post - Michael Dirda
… Toibin's impersonation of James works beautifully. The prose is appropriately grave and wistful, the sentences stately without being ponderous, the descriptions at once precise and evocative. The action, such as it is, moves smoothly from a time of temporary desolation to memories of horrible physical and mental suffering to angst-filled comedy (James dithering about how to deal with two drunken servants, James uncertain about how to dispose of the dresses of a dead woman). Toibin focuses on his subject in the years between 1895, when James's play "Guy Domville" was hooted on its opening night, and 1899, when his elder brother William came to visit at Lamb House, his beloved residence in Rye. But in between Toibin recreates scenes from James's childhood, offers a subtle interpretation of the apparent back injury -- the so-called great "vastation" -- that kept him out of the Civil War and helped make him an artist, and systematically introduces many of the people important in the writer's life.