“It’s amazing how some people don’t see paintings. They can walk in and not even look at the walls. There could be dead people hanging in every corner and they wouldn’t notice. They live in private tunnels; only use their eyes to keep from bumping into things, the way bats use sonar.”

In a year’s time, I’ve read three novels about painters in the last phase of their careers—of their lives: Cary’s “The Horse’s Mouth”, Vonnegut’s “Bluebeard” and, now, “Scumbler”. There were also a handful of stories of obsessive artists in the collection of Oliver Onions that I’d read to the wife. None of this was intentional. Certainly coincidental, seeing as the fourth story of my current horror story extravaganza will feature a middle-aged painter being investigated for curious events leading up to missing persons. Or something of the sort, since I’ve yet to flesh out the skeleton on that story (for Christ’s sake, I’m already writing the third while typing and editing the second). For the first story, I’d read at least four Westerns and did a ton of related research before even attempting to stretch that skin over the wire cage. However, by the time I get to the fourth story I’ll only have to read John Collier’s “A Manual of Oil Painting” and a slew of research on Victorian England. I was originally going to base the story on Collier, but there really isn’t all that much interesting about the man himself—seemed to be the type to let his art do the speaking. Why drag a good hardworking man through the muck of soul-stealing and murder? Besides, it’s not really going to be set in England (since I’ve never been there) just like “Skinner Plains” isn’t really set in Far West Texas (having never kicked the stones there either). All the stories in “Begorrah Bone House”, all the settings, are going to be nebulous yet familiar. They’re just catch pans for all that bloodshed, anyway.

In any case, “Scumbler” was definitely a novel worthy of its placement beside the other two. Sure, “Bluebeard” was cooler and “The Horse’s Mouth” was funnier, but William Wharton’s take on the subject was a little bit of both—laughing cool blue. Fucking insightful and fraught with self-doubt and self-affirmation. I really dug it. And scumbling? It’s an art term. I looked it up. It works into the metaphor for the novel. Just like my reading of all three novels, and the unsettling supernatural tales by Onions, were accidentally on purpose. It took four artists before I came across one who knew immediately what the technique was. He even takes chunks out of the bristles to achieve the effect. Purposefully accidental. I love it. And I love how all of this is going to affect my own story about a compulsive and impulsive painter.

And just for grins:

“For a man, there’s probably nothing better than laughing with a hard-on.”

—Scumbler by William Wharton ( )

A great semi-autobiographical book about an old american painter living in Paris... ( )