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Does Life Imitate Art or Is It the Other Way Around?

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By Lauren Fox

Nov. 2, 2021

STILL LIFE By Sarah Winman

Historical fiction hits closest to the bone when it illuminates what we know to be true: that we move through capital-H History, but in each moment, the spotlight shines brightest on the unremarkable details of our own lives. Momentous events occur, and sometimes we’re caught up in them, but we are — simultaneously, inescapably — the main characters in our own stories. Sarah Winman’s sweeping “Still Life” is a parade of small stories, intimate connections and complex characters whose lives illuminate the tedium and cataclysms of the 20th century.

Ulysses Temper is the modest, searching, wandering protagonist. (We’re told early that he’s named after a winning greyhound, but sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar.) We meet him as a young soldier in Italy in 1944; almost immediately he crosses paths with Evelyn Skinner, a 64-year-old lover of life and an enthusiastic art historian. She imparts life-changing wisdom about love and art and the city of Florence. Their paths diverge, and he takes her words with him back to London, where he resumes working at a pub. Soon enough, Ulysses and his makeshift family — his ex-wife’s young daughter, Alys; his friend Cress; and a talking parrot named Claude — move to Italy, where Ulysses has inherited a large apartment that they convert into a thriving pensione . Cress, who was able to communicate with trees in London, can also communicate with trees in Italy.

It’s hard to encompass all that happens in this whopper of a book, partly because it spans four decades (and more than 450 pages), but even more so because much of it is just the stuff of life, suffused with copious dialogue so casual and idiomatic that it almost subverts its own demand for attention. Ulysses’ wife, Peg, falls in love with another soldier; she gets pregnant. Ulysses continues to love Peg and eventually raises the child on his own, since Peg is not fit for motherhood. One character finds love in his golden years. Another finds love early, and nothing else compares. During the war, Ulysses saved a life in Florence. Some years later, he is repaid for his kindness.

What holds these characters together is the love of a chosen family and the role of art in maintaining their commitments to one another. Much of the story takes place in Florence, and one particular capital-H Historical moment is the 1966 flood of the Arno, during which millions of books and works of art were destroyed, and countless livelihoods were obliterated — each, Winman reminds us, meaningless without the other.

The novel’s articulation of faith is spoken by Evelyn, who rhapsodizes in the early pages, “Beautiful art opens our eyes to the beauty of the world, Ulysses. It repositions our sight and judgment.” This is a theme that runs through the novel, and it’s a bold authorial move, insisting upon the transformative power of aesthetics. Winman makes the case over and over again that beauty is truth, truth beauty, and of course it raises the reader’s expectations. If the book itself isn’t transcendent, the scaffolding will not hold.

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clock This article was published more than 2 years ago

Sarah Winman’s ‘Still Life’ feels like a Saturday night among old friends

I’m not promising too much by claiming that Sarah Winman’s “ Still Life ” is a tonic for wanderlust and a cure for loneliness. It’s that rare, affectionate novel that makes one feel grateful to have been carried along. Unfurling with no more hurry than a Saturday night among old friends, the story celebrates the myriad ways love is expressed and families are formed.

That may sound suspiciously sentimental, but the joys of “Still Life” are cured in a furnace of tragedy. The action begins in Italy during World War II. As bombs fall around them, a young British soldier named Ulysses runs across Miss Evelyn Skinner, a 64-year-old art historian. She’s been commissioned to help identify masterpieces hidden in the Tuscan hills to protect them from theft and destruction. When Ulysses questions the relevance of her work amid the human carnage of war, she’s ready: “Beautiful art opens our eyes to the beauty of the world, Ulysses. It repositions our sight and judgment. Captures forever that which is fleeting,” Evelyn says. “Art versus humanity is not the question, Ulysses. One doesn’t exist without the other.”

Ulysses, an unusually thoughtful and compassionate man, will never forget that lesson, but he has no reason to think he’ll ever see Evelyn again. The war, after all, is a great scrambler of human beings, a calamity as adept at forging relationships as breaking them apart. Indeed, the rest of “Still Life” — some 400 pages spread over several decades — takes place in the shadow of that common trauma of missing someone.

From the battlefields of Europe, Ulysses returns to London’s East End, particularly to a shabby Georgian tavern called the Stoat and Parot, home to a preternaturally clever bird. “Ulysses pushed open the door,” Winman writes, “and the fire to his right gave off a ripe old smell, all sour and smarting bodies. The old ones were huddled around the hearth exactly as he’d left them: same faces less teeth.” These are the weathered characters of Ulysses’ adolescence, a network of bartenders, gamblers and drinkers who care for each other like the world depends on it — because it does. They may know nothing about the “beautiful art” of Florence, but they’re all master sculptors of what Winman calls “the haunting aspect of devotion.”

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Chief among these eccentrics is Col, who owns the Stoat and Parot. Disappointed in love — like everybody else here — Col buries his grief beneath a shell of grumpy sarcasm. “He knew something had gone wrong,” Winman writes, “but for the life of him he didn’t know how to put it right.” The usual target of Col’s insults is his best friend, Old Cressy, who “could fix anything, find anything, and was everyone’s go-to man in need.”

Winman has perfected a style as comfortable and agile as the greetings and anecdotes these old friends have traded for years. She moves among them, licking up phrases and glances, catching the sharp savor of this smoky place so well you’ll taste it on your lips.

The person most responsible for drawing Ulysses back home is Peg, a singer at the Stoat and Parot, who also happens to be his wife. They married right before he left for war — purely a financial arrangement, they claim — but everybody else can see what’s going on. “He couldn’t take his eyes off her,” Winman writes. “He never would.” They have the kind of elastic fidelity to each other that somehow can’t be completely broken or fully embraced.

As soon as Ulysses returns home, “they got divorced,” Winman writes, “and got more friendly.” That’s a typical Winman maneuver, sly and heartbreaking. Ulysses is even happy to play stepdad to Peg’s child, the product of an affair with an American soldier who vanished and left Peg pining.

It’s no coincidence that Ulysses earns a living making globes — delicate, hand-painted models of a planet recently blown apart and reassembled by war. That’s essentially what he and his friends are doing, too: remaking the world as best they can with the bits of paint and paste they can scrap together. The old borders that once outlined what a family is have been burned away; the standard of respectability has been knocked off its axis.

When Ulysses inherits a large house in Italy, his little community in London could have fallen apart, but instead, it moves with him to Florence. Here, he and the old gang have a chance to design an idyllic life entirely devoted to beauty, leisure and hospitality. Seeing them again is “like an infusion of blood straight to the heart,” Winman writes. “All that love.”

Under the spell of Winman’s narration, this seems entirely possible — and endlessly charming. “Still Life,” like real life, sometimes appears to have no forward momentum except the gentle repetition of daily routines and the passage of time. But the novel never feels anything less than captivating because Winman creates such a flawless illusion of spontaneity, an atmosphere capable of sustaining these characters’ macabre wit, comedy of manners and poignant longing.

Looking at his assembled friends one night, Ulysses thinks, “You’d want to be with them. . . . You’d want to be part of them.”

Read “Still Life,” and you can be.

Ron Charles writes about books for The Washington Post and hosts TotallyHipVideoBookReview.com .

By Sarah Winman

G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 452 pp. $27

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by Sarah Winman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2021

An unexpected treatise on the many forms love and beauty can take, set against the backdrop of Florence.

An epic about a family of friends who make the city of Florence their home in the mid-to-late 20th century.

Evelyn Skinner, an art teacher and Englishwoman approaching 64 years of age, meets Ulysses Temper, a 24-year-old private from London, on the side of an Italian road in 1944, while bombs are falling on distant hills. At its core, this slowly unfolding narrative is the story of their friendship, though it is also a story of the creation of a family of friends, transplanted from London to Italy: pub owner Col; pub worker, amateur singer, and eventual mother Peg; pianist Pete; elderly friend Cressy; child Alys; a bright blue parrot, Claude; and ultimately, of course, Evelyn. This story winds and wanders through the years, in the end covering 1901 to 1979, as Ulysses and Cressy establish a successful pensione in Florence, Alys grows up, and Evelyn and the others grow older. This is a slow-paced narrative that unfolds as a love story to Florence and a love story to love—romantic, platonic, familial, parental, friend, community, Sapphic, and gay love are all celebrated. Art history is often mentioned, as are parallels to the pensione in E.M. Forster’s A Room With a View . While this is a book to settle into, the narrative feels almost breathless at times, in part due to the lack of quotation marks around the dialogue, which makes it feel as if the unknown narrator is relating a long story deep into the night.

Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-33075-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021

LITERARY FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs : people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3

Page Count: 448

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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Theresa Smith Writes

Delighting in all things bookish, book review: still life by sarah winman, about the book:.

1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening.

Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.

Evelyn’s talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses’ mind that will shape the trajectory of his life – and of those who love him – for the next four decades.

Moving from the Tuscan Hills and piazzas of Florence, to the smog of London’s East End, Still Life is a sweeping, joyful novel about beauty, love, family and fate.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia – 4th Estate GB

Released 2 nd June 2021

My Thoughts:

‘There are moments in life, so monumental and still, that the memory can never be retrieved without a catch to the throat or an interruption to the beat of the heart. Can never be retrieved without the rumbling disquiet of how close that moment came to not having happened at all.’

Readers, please meet my new favourite book. This novel. I love it when this happens, when you know, right from the first page, that you are reading something rare and wonderful and completely perfect for you. That’s what Still Life is for me. Note that I said is, not was, because I don’t think this novel could ever be past tense for me. There is so much love, human connection, and appreciation for art and literature on every page of this novel. It’s absolutely filled to the brim with philosophy about life, art, literature, morality, sensibility, and how all these things give meaning to our existence and connect us to each other. There’s also a wonderful play on six degrees of separation throughout, with so many people connecting back to Evelyn – even famous literary figures. And it’s funny. And beautiful. And it has this amazing South American Macaw named Claude in it who is the most brilliant character you could ever meet. The things he says! He is so funny. If only I could teach Mordy, my own parrot, to speak like Claude.

‘The power of still life lies precisely in this triviality. Because it is a world of reliability. Of mutuality between objects that are there, and people who are not. Paused time in ghostly absence.’

Still Life is a love letter to Florence. Which really suited me just fine because Florence is the city of my dreams, the one I want to one day wander through. The Florence of Still Life is a character itself, bubbling with atmosphere and continually pressing me to drink wine, eat pasta, and sip espresso. Outdoors of course. The novel is imbued with Florentine history and culture, from the 1970s back through the ages, seen and retold through the eyes of people who have made it their home. The narrative has a conversational feel to it, it’s very intimate in style. The lack of quotation marks enhanced this novel greatly, I felt, aiding in that intimacy and giving the reader a sense of being a part of it all. The characters were all just brilliant. Both clashing and cohesive, the dynamics between them all reached out of the page and drew me in. There is passion in this novel but there is also love, deep and devoted non-romantic love between people who are not related, but rather, choose each other as family. I loved this about Still Life the most: the relationships that brought such an eclectic mix of people together to live under the one roof in a distant land.

‘And it was this she would remember: His voice resonant in the stillness. People listening to him, not laughing. She stood up, marched over to him and held his hand. Her exquisite moment of ownership. The day when he became hers. ’

As is the way, the ones you love the most are the hardest to review. I think it’s because the objectivity is lost. You love it, and that’s all there is to it, so other people should too – and they should brace themselves if they don’t (just joking…sort of). I do think this novel has so much to offer to those who love literary historical fiction, particularly sweeping sagas that weave the history of a place firmly into its narrative. And if you love Italy, then this is definitely a novel to add to your shelf. While the world we currently live in prevents me from wandering the streets of Florence, I am grateful to Sarah Winman for giving us Still Life. The next best thing.

‘So, time heals. Mostly. Sometimes carelessly. And in unsuspecting moments, the pain catches and reminds one of all that’s been missing. The fulcrum of what might have been. But then it passes. Winter moves into spring and swallows return. The proximity of new skin returns to the sheets. Beauty does what is required. Jobs fulfil and conversations inspire. Loneliness becomes a mere Sunday. Scattered clothes. Empty bowls. Rotting fruit. Passing time. But still life in all its beauty and complexity.’

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy .

Still Life review: Sarah Winman's exquisite testament to life, love and art is a masterpiece

Sarah Winman has created a masterpiece.

Sarah Winman

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Still Life: a timeless novel celebrating art and life entwined

Book review: set during a pivotal period in european history, sarah winman delivers a micro story on a macro scale.

Sarah Winman, author of Still Life

In the small hours of November 5th, 1966, the river Arno burst its banks and flooded Florence. The Renaissance city was devastated by some 600,000 tonnes of mud that remained in its wake. Fifty thousand Florentine families lost their homes. Thousands of masterpieces of art and and rare books were damaged or destroyed as galleries, churches and museums sat submerged in mud that is reported to have reached 6.8m (22ft) in height in some parts of the city.

In the immediate aftermath, hundreds of young people travelled from across the Continent to help with the great clean-up, rescuing priceless paintings from the Uffizi galleries and providing aid to the broken-hearted Florentines. These spontaneous volunteers became known as the angeli del fango – the mud angels.

This is the world of Sarah Winman’s fourth novel, in which the beauty of art collides with the random tragedies of life and is not always victorious. And yet the response – how people choose to persevere, to drag each other through – somehow makes the suffering worthwhile.

From the award-winning author of When God Was a Rabbit and Tin Man, Still Life intercepts a young British soldier, Ulysses Temper, with Evelyn Skinner, a gay sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. It is 1944 and they are hiding in the ruined cellar of a Tuscan villa as bombs fall. Evelyn has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage of war and reminisce about the time she encountered EM Forster as she fell in love with a Florentine maid.

Ulysses is utterly changed by their encounter – the seeds she plants in his mind about truth and beauty take root and ultimately grow into a worldview that will alter the trajectory of his life, and those around him, for the ensuing four decades we spend in his company.

Transversing across that pivotal time in European history and moving from the dirty smog of London’s East End to the sensuous piazzas of Florence, Winman’s ability to deliver a micro story on a macro scale is impressive. There is something very particular about the prose that sets her apart from other contemporary novelists. The omniscient narrator of Still Life bears more resemblance to that of a classic novel than might be currently considered fashionable – the tone is warm and avoids the chilly vernacular of many of her peers – and Winmanis unafraid to infuse the prose with moments of magical realism via a sentient tree here, a cognisant parrot there.

The novel presupposes that magic is all around us – perhaps we just call it other things, superstition, coincidence, serendipity, instinct, luck. And it offers a rich education in art appreciation and social history. All of which, when delivered with the author’s technical wizardry, elevates the work as one that will resonate long after this particular moment in time. It is timeless, not trendy; proactive, not reactive.

At the centre of the novel is a question – what is the heart capable of? Ulysses suggests an answer: “grace and fury”. Throughout the narrative, the complex, compelling characters are constantly pushing their hearts to the absolute limit of endurance.

Her previous novels have shown Winman as one of the greatest chroniclers of grief – the great cost of love – and of the ghosts that haunt our lives – regret, missed opportunities, lost connections. In Still Life, she emerges now as the great narrator of hope. When all feels lost, the love and kindness of others can revive us. Winman is unafraid to chart this sentiment but never slips into sentimentality. There is a constant friction in the text between the “conspiracy of beauty everywhere” and “the acknowledgement that if such beauty exists then so does the opposite”. A beautiful life is not a perfect one, with an absence of grief, but a full one that is worthy of grieving.

Pete, the gifted piano player in Winman’s supporting cast, writes a song about the mud angels. It is a ballad, “about good rising out of need, about love in all its forms, about kindness and looking out for one another, and only the third verse was about art, but even that was about the paradox of meaning. It was classic Pete. Took you one way, took you back, and then delivered the punch.”

His lyrics serve as the perfect description of Winman’s novel, a celebration of “art and life intwined” that delivers to us solace, hope and the courage to dream again. We must save art, because in the end, it is the art that will save us. Classic Winman.

Helen Cullen

Helen Cullen, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a novelist and critic

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“Still Life” by Sarah Winman – Book Review

Alys – the daughter of Ulysses’ wife who was conceived when Ulysses was off fighting during WWII. Though she is not his biological child, he loves her more fiercely that most birth-fathers. She is a precocious, intelligent, and opinionated child who turns into an amazing, courageous, and talented young woman.

Claude – an African blue parrot who is more human than most parrots…

Evelyn Skinner – a woman who Ulysses met during WWII. She is forty years his senior, an art-historian, a lesbian, and they formed a life-long bond upon their acquaintance.

Peg Temper – ex-wife of Ulysses and mother of Alys. She has never gotten over Eddie, Alys’s father. However, her life-long love for Ulysses remains intact. Her daughter’s physical resemblance to her lost love Eddie, mars her ability to mother the child, so she lets Ulysses take her to live with him in Florence, while she stays behind in London. Peg is beautiful, abrasive, and simultaneously endearing. Also, she has a spectacular singing voice.

Pete Fine – a talented pianist, aspiring actor, and friend to all at the pensione.

Col – owns the ‘Stoat and Parot’ pub in the East End of London where all the characters originated. He too will be a life-long friend to them all.

It is a story about family – two men, a young girl, and a parrot. And no, they are not related by blood, but by affection. It is a story of conversational trees, and a parrot who does not mimic, but has meaningful discussions. Odd you think? Yes, but this just adds to the book’s tender magic. It is also a novel of loss, love, kindness, friendship, kismet, serendipity , human resilience, and connections to both people and places. A novel that reinforces the notion that ‘home’ is more the people in it, than any one place. It is a tribute to the majestic and historic city of Florence.

The novel also spoke to the devastation of the 1966 flood in the city when the banks of the Arno overflowed.

When I read that the novelist Joanna Cannon wrote “ Sarah Winman” is why I write “, it affirmed why I love both these literary writers.

ISBN: 9780593330753 – ASIN: ‎ B08XJ7HYWL 497 pages

Sarah Winman (born 1964) is a British actress and author. In 2011 her debut novel When God Was a Rabbit became an international bestseller and won several awards including New Writer of the Year in the Galaxy National Book Awards. “ Still Life ” is her fourth novel. She now lives in London, England.

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About Fictionophile

20 responses to “still life” by sarah winman – book review.

I was given the book as a “thank you” by a grateful young Indian couple who had shared my home for a year. As soon as I finished it, I started reading it again – the main characters are so vivid, the prose so rich and often unusual – I often reach for my dictionary or Google – that for me the book needed a second read fully to be savoured and appreciated. Mike Jones

Hello Mike. Thanks for sharing your reading experiences of Sarah Winman’s “Still Life”. I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed it.

I’m in the middle of this novel — down to the last 100 pages. And I was looking on google to see if there was a study guide of questions for when our book club discusses it – and I came across your blog & review, which is done very well. You describe it well. Winman seems to be doing an EM Forster kind of tale set in England & Italy — the novel Room With a View is mentioned a few times in the novel. I will see how it ends but I am liking it.

Like Liked by 1 person

Thanks for getting in touch. Hopefully you will have a great bookclub discussion about “Still Life”.

It took a while to get used to reading this book. As you rightly say, it had to be read slowly – and now I am looking forward to reading her other books. A lovely novel, full of love and rich characters, also very interesting about Florence. Everything in it was so beautiful. I shall keep it and read it again.

I feel that Sarah Winman’s novels are definitely ‘re-read’ worthy. “The Tin Man” was also a favorite of mine.

Loved this book and didn’t want it to end

Yes I agree Carol. It was a stellar read.

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I’m so curious about this book! Love your review!!

Thank-you 😊

A wonderful review. I am currently reading this. It is unique.

I’ve been contemplating this one! Great review!

Thanks Carol. 👍

Sounds wonderful Lynne!

I love her writing Nicki.

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Still Life Book Review

Founding and hosting The Bondi Literary Salon is – without question – one of the biggest sources of joy for me; and there are few things I like better than getting together with fellow book lovers to discuss our latest read. It’s not allowed me to forge friendships with people I wouldn’t otherwise have met; but it’s also a great way to keep to a reading schedule (of sorts). And while I continue to count down the days until the end of lockdown, having a monthly meet-up – albeit via Zoom – has certainly given me something to look forward to.

And thus it was that when I saw that Clay and Hannah from Bouquiniste in Kiama were also hosting a book club in September, I immediately signed up. A one-off event with author Sarah Winman discussing her latest book, Still Life, it gave me an excuse to move the book to the top of my TBR pile, and I read it one sun-drenched, winter weekend in Sydney, sitting on my window seat; not allowed to leave the house.

The type of book we all need in our lives will navigating the trench that is Covid-19, from the very first page of Still Life I was transported to a land faraway, when a chance encounter between sixty-four-year-old art historian Evelyn Skinner and twenty-four-year-old British soldier Ulysses Temper takes place at the foot of the Tuscan Hills. And while the meeting is a fleeting one; it’s one that leaves a lasting impression on both characters, even though it will be years before they see each other again. Because while both characters return to London, fate will have them meet again in the beautiful city of Florence, after a string of near misses sees them reunited for good.

A richly layered tapestry that fuses friendship with loss and heartbreak with and love, Still Life has it all: vivid and vibrant characters, two contrasting settings brought to life by both the characters that lie therein and Winman’s wonderfully evocative writing. From the magic and splendour of Florence to the gritty backdrop of a pub in East End London, Still Life is full of magic and joy and art and history, and it offers the reader a wonderful depiction of the richness of the Florentine heritage, from the wine to the food to the glorious cast of characters.

A must-read for anyone wanting to escape the everyday; Still Life by Sarah Winman is the absolute ultimate in daydreaming decadence.

Still Life by Sarah Winman Summary

By the bestselling, prize-winning author of When God was a Rabbit and Tin Man, Still Life is a beautiful, big-hearted, richly tapestried story of people brought together by love, war, art, flood… and the ghost of E.M. Forster.

We just need to know what the heart’s capable of, Evelyn.

And do you know what it’s capable of?

I do. Grace and fury.

It’s 1944 and in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as the Allied troops advance and bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening together.

Ulysses Temper is a young British solider and one-time globe-maker, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and relive her memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.

These two unlikely people find kindred spirits in each other and Evelyn’s talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses mind that will shape the trajectory of his life – and of those who love him – for the next four decades.

Moving from the Tuscan Hills, to the smog of the East End and the piazzas of Florence, Still Life is a sweeping, mischievous, richly-peopled novel about beauty, love, family and fate.

Buy Still Life from Bookshop.org , Book Depository , Waterstones , Amazon or Amazon AU .

Sarah Winman author bio

Sarah Winman (born 1964) is a British actress and author. In 2011 her debut novel When God Was a Rabbit became an international bestseller and won Winman several awards including New Writer of the Year in the Galaxy National Book Awards.

More Sarah Winman Books

Sarah Winman has also written A Year of Marvellous Ways , When God Was a Rabbit and Tinman .

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Still Life by Sarah Winman Book Guide

By: Author Jen - MMB Book Blog

Posted on Published: 13 November 2021 - Last updated: 27 February 2024

Still Life is a historical fiction novel by Sarah Winman, published in 2021 .

Sarah Winman is the New York Times bestselling author of Tin Man and When God Was A Rabbit .

Still Life has received such great reviews and has featured on several 2021 ‘best books’ lists. It was also shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction so I was so excited to read it and hoped it would live up to the hype.

Still Life by Sarah Winman: Plot

In a ruined Tuscan wine cellar in 1944, Ulysses Temper, a young British soldier, meets Evelyn Skinner, a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. Evelyn has returned to Italy to help salvage the paintings from the effects of war, and relive her memories of her youth, where she met EM Forster and a maid who captured her heart.

Evelyn’s outlook on life and her talk of beauty and truth has such a profound effect on Ulysses that, despite the fact they’re unlikely to meet again, their conversations shape the outlook of his whole life.

The book takes us from Italy during World War Two to the smog of London’s East End and back to the Tuscan Hills and piazzas of Florence as it spans four decades of Ulysses’ life.

Still Life by Sarah Winman: My Opinion

Witty, moving, poignant…There are so many positive ways I could describe this book and yet I’d still feel I’m not doing it justice. It’s definitely one of my favourite reads of 2021.

It actually took me a couple of chapters to get into the book. The opening scene didn’t immediately grab me and I wasn’t sure I was going to like it but as soon as we were taken to post-war East End London I was hooked.

I saw Sarah Winman talk about the book on Between The Covers and she stated she wanted to write a book that was the perfect remedy for a world that can seem so bleak. It was exactly that. It was full of charming characters, wonderful locations and so much love.

It’s definitely a character-driven novel. I can’t even pinpoint my favourite character because I loved them all. They were all so well developed, they felt like real people. The city of Florence almost became its own character. The sights, the sounds (and the smells!) were so vivid, I almost felt like I was there.

Stretching throughout the 20th century from 1944 to 1979, the book spans decades but focuses on the little details. It touches on the big historical events but really focuses on the impact these events have on the characters.

Art was a big theme throughout the book and for someone who knows absolutely nothing about art, I still found it was written in an interesting and accessible way. However, the main theme is love. Familial love. Romantic love. The love between friends as friendships turn into family.

How many pages does Still Life by Sarah Winman have?

Still Life has a total of 449 pages.

When was Still Life released?

Still Life by Sarah Winman was published on 1st June 2021.

What should I read after Still Life by Sarah Winman?

If you enjoyed Still Life, I would definitely recommend reading Sarah Winman’s debut novel, When God Was A Rabbit . It has a similar whimsical feel to the story and I really enjoyed them both.

I’d also recommend The Hearts Invisible Furies by John Boyne as another novel that follows characters throughout the decades and has the perfect mix of wit and emotion.

Has Sarah Winman written any other novels?

Sarah Winman has written three other novels:

When God Was a Rabbit (2011)
A Year of Marvellous Ways (2015)
Tin Man (2017)

Still Life is full of wisdom and charm and I absolutely adored it. It was a joy to read – the sort of book you just don’t want to end. It’s definitely one of my favourite books of the year.

Related Books

When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman
Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce

Related Book Lists

Between the Covers Book List
Women’s Prize For Fiction Winners

Summary and Study Guide

Still Life is a contemporary work of historical fiction by British author and actress Sarah Winman. The novel traces the impact of World War II on Italy and the British expatriates living there. Still Life shows the lives of LGBTQ+ characters during the mid-20th century, when gay and lesbian relationships were legally and/or culturally prohibited. The novel was a Sunday Times bestseller as well as a Guardian Best Book of 2021, a winner of the InWords Literary Award, and the recipient of many other prizes. Winman is the author of three other novels, including the international bestseller When God Was a Rabbit (2011).

This guide uses the 2021 G. P. Putnam's Sons Kindle edition of Still Life .

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Plot Summary

The novel is divided into nine chapters, and each chapter focuses on one to several years from the 1940s to the 1970s in England and Italy.

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The novel begins in 1944, toward the end of World War II in Italy. Margaret and Evelyn Skinner , two older British women with a passion for art history, take refuge from the war in a villa in Tuscany. Evelyn is attempting to help Allied forces track down and protect precious art works in war-occupied territories; she and Margaret used to be lovers, but now they’re only friends. Meanwhile, a British soldier named Ulysses Temper is serving with the Allied forces as they begin to liberate Florence. He meets Evelyn on the road because she is looking for someone to speak with about the art treasures in the area. He brings her to meet his commander and good friend Captain Darnley, who also has a passion for art. They take Evelyn to see a priceless altarpiece, but when enemy artillery strikes their headquarters, Darnley and Ulysses drive Evelyn back to her villa.

Meanwhile, in London, Ulysses’s wife, Peggy, is trying to start a new life without him. She works as a bartender in a pub but must endure constant harassment from the male patrons who find her attractive. Peggy wants to date Eddie, an American soldier, because she hopes he will bring her back to America with him. Peggy and Ulysses don’t write to each other, preferring to meet again when the war is done and sort their lives out then. Before the war ends, Darnley dies in action in September at the age of 30.

Ulysses returns to London when the war ends. While he’s been away, his father’s business has been shattered, and his wife Peggy has had a child with Eddie. Eddie has been missing for years, and Peggy doesn’t know whether he’s dead or has moved on from her. Peggy’s daughter, Alys , reminds her too much of Eddie and of Peggy’s loss of independence, so she resents Alys.

Peggy and Ulysses have a tumultuous reunion, but eventually, they learn how to be friends again, and Ulysses becomes a father figure to Alys. They both find employment after the war; Ulysses starts working in Col’s bar with his friend Cress , as Peggy has become a typist. Col, the owner of the bar, has a daughter, Ginny, who has an intellectual disability; though Ginny is an adult, she acts and thinks like a child. Therefore, when Ginny gets pregnant, Col is determined to find the man who took advantage of her.

Small-town dramas like this inform Ulysses’s new civilian life. The years go by, and London starts to rebuild itself from the damage caused by the war. Ulysses discovers that Arturo, an Italian soldier whose life he saved during the war, has died and left everything in his will—his property in Florence and his money—to Ulysses. Ulysses decides to move to Italy. Peggy refuses to go with him but sends Alys with him so Alys can have a better, more loving life. Cress also decides to move to Italy with Ulysses.

Cress, Ulysses, and Alys move to Florence. On the way to Florence, Cress reveals that he snuck Claude the parrot out of Col’s bar and into Europe to join them on their move. They are astounded by the wealth Arturo left for them; the house is so big that they turn the first-floor apartment into a pensione for tourists. A notary named Massimo helps them set up in their new life, and the group begins to adapt to their neighborhood’s culture and the Italian language. At Christmas, friends from home, including Peggy and her boyfriend Ted, come to visit. Peggy’s personality has diminished within her relationship with Ted—he is very controlling, and she holds a lot of shame from her past. Claude the parrot warns Peggy not to marry Ted, but she does anyway.

In their first few months in Italy, Cress starts to come out of his shell more. He starts reading literature and dating an Italian woman in the neighborhood, and Alys starts school and makes new friends. Meanwhile, Ulysses starts making globes, wondering if he can restart his father’s former craft. Ulysses often thinks of Evelyn and wonders where and how she is, and whether she is still alive.

Evelyn is indeed alive. After the war, she moved back to England to become an art history teacher, and she is much beloved by her students. She and her girlfriend, a famous artist named Dotty, visit Florence in 1955, but she narrowly misses seeing Ulysses. Evelyn meets Alys, and when Alys tells Ulysses about a woman named Evelyn, he rushes to the train station to find her, but he misses her train. Over the next few years, Evelyn often travels to Florence and frequents the same neighborhood where Ulysses lives. Each time, they miss running into one another.

At age 14, Alys discovers her sexuality. She likes girls but tries to keep her relationship with an American girl named Romy a secret. As Alys grows up, Ulysses can sense the distance between them and wishes they could be closer. Alys likes music and art, and she is at the beginning stages of finding herself. She tells Ulysses about being in love with a girl, which he readily accepts. He has Massimo help talk to Alys about her sexuality being normal and beautiful. When Alys turns 17, she moves to London to work in Col’s bar and go to art school. While at art school, Alys attends one of Evelyn Skinner’s art history lectures.

Peggy’s relationship with Ted is complicated by Peggy’s loss of autonomy. The years go on, and Ulysses remains alone, now longing for Giulia, the married manager of his favorite café. Cress is in a long-term relationship with an Italian woman named Paola, and when she dies suddenly, Cress is devastated. Cress turns to nature for comfort. Friends Pete, Col, and Peggy pay a surprise visit to be with Cress to help him through the tough time he is having. When Ulysses learns this, he wonders how Peggy was able to travel without her possessive husband. Meanwhile, Alys, now 21, has moved back to Florence.

In 1966, the river Arno floods, and Florence is devastated as a result. People die, thousands are displaced from their homes, and priceless artworks are destroyed. The flood and its aftermath remind Italians of the war. Many young people flock to the city to help with reconstruction; their generosity and commitment to their culture gives them the nickname “Mud Angels.” Evelyn hears the news in England and rushes to Italy when she sees a newspaper photograph of Ulysses in the wreckage. When she arrives, they are finally reunited after 22 years. The flooding of the Arno is a historically accurate and significant moment in Italian history that sparks cultural and institutional change. Evelyn moves permanently into Ulysses’s pensione in Florence. When Peggy is in a disastrous car accident, Col moves her from London to Florence, where she stays for years and rekindles a relationship with Alys. Cress and the parrot Claude die together, and the pensione family leaves his ashes in the countryside so he can grow into a tree.

The 1970s see a new Italy, where frequent political protests challenge Italy’s unity. Massimo’s mother dies, and he then also moves into the pensione . Major changes take place for the characters as well. Alys and Romy reunite and fall in love again. Peggy divorces Ted and starts singing with Pete. In a club, she meets an American named Glen, who tells her that Eddie died six months after their time in London; Eddie was in love with Peggy and had every intention of marrying her. Peggy and Glen fall in love. Evelyn turns 99 years old and is celebrated by all her loved ones in Florence.

The novel flashes back to just before Evelyn’s 21st birthday when she moves to Florence. There, she meets the poet Constance Everly, who takes Evelyn under her wing and teaches her about Italian art and literature. Evelyn immediately falls in love with Italy and is moved to her core by the beauty of the country and its art. She then falls in love with Livia, who is a maid in the boardinghouse where Evelyn is staying. Evelyn meets the soon-to-be famous novelist E. M. Forster touring Italy with his mother. Evelyn tells him about her room with a view, and later, E. M. Forster will write an iconic novel about an Englishwoman in Italy titled A Room with a View . Livia and Evelyn end their passionate love affair when Evelyn leaves for Rome to be with her aunt. Eventually, communications with Livia cease and when Evelyn returns to Florence, Livia is nowhere to be found. Evelyn keeps the violet Livia gave her for the rest of her life, and she learns to move through the pain of losing this first love by cherishing her memory.

In the final moments of Still Life , the narrative returns to Evelyn and Ulysses together again in Florence. They visit the grave of Captain Darnley, and both choose to remember their lost loved ones as young, happy, and full of life.

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Still Life : Book summary and reviews of Still Life by Sarah Winman

Summary | Reviews | More Information | More Books

by Sarah Winman

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Published Nov 2021 464 pages Genre: Historical Fiction Publication Information

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About this book

Book summary.

A captivating, bighearted, richly tapestried story of people brought together by love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster, by the celebrated author of Tin Man

Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs fall around deserted villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her own youth. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amidst the rubble of war-torn Italy, and set off on a course of events that will shape Ulysses's life for the next four decades. As Ulysses returns home to London, reimmersing himself in his crew at The Stoat and Parot—a motley mix of pub crawlers and eccentrics—he carries his time in Italy with him. And when an unexpected inheritance brings him back to where it all began, Ulysses knows better than to tempt fate, and returns to the Tuscan hills. With beautiful prose, extraordinary tenderness, and bursts of humor and light, Still Life is a sweeping portrait of unforgettable individuals who come together to make a family, and a deeply drawn celebration of beauty and love in all its forms.

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Reader reviews.

"While this is a book to settle into, the narrative feels almost breathless at times, in part due to the lack of quotation marks around the dialogue, which makes it feel as if the unknown narrator is relating a long story deep into the night. An unexpected treatise on the many forms love and beauty can take, set against the backdrop of Florence." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "It is hard to envision a reader who won't be smitten by Winman's characters and their banter." - Booklist (starred review) "[L]ush...Winman covers much ground, including the devastating 1966 flood of the Arno, a cameo appearance by E.M. Forster, and many rich sections about art, relationships and the transcendent beauty of Tuscany, and while it occasionally feels like two novels stitched into one, for the most part it hangs together. Readers will enjoy this paean to the power of love and art." - Publishers Weekly " Still Life is simultaneously expansive and intimate, a heady brew of disasters, both natural and manmade, of death and life, of the power of great art and, most especially, the resonance of those loves we carry for a lifetime. A truly spectacular achievement. I've never read anything quite like it." - Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves "From its opening pages Still Life embodies the full generosity of the human spirit. This vast, ambitious, galloping bear-hug of a book unashamedly celebrates love in all its many forms. Love of art, love of strangers, love of a good glass of Italian wine and a bowl of pasta cooked with enough salt to taste like the sea. Love of stories. Love of love." - Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry "The sheer joy in [Winman's] storytelling is completely infectious. I've loved spending time with this unforgettable cast of characters in extraordinary times and places." - Graham Norton

Author Information

Sarah winman.

Sarah Winman is the author of three previous novels, Tin Man , A Year of Marvelous Ways , and When God Was a Rabbit . She grew up in Essex and now lives in London. She attended the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art and went on to act in theater, film, and television.

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Still Life – by Sarah Winman – independent book review – Historical Fiction (World War II, Italy, England)

STILL LIFE is not an easy book to describe. Author Sarah Winman has created some wonderful characters, but not very much drama happens as they go about their daily lives. So, definitely NOT an action packed novel. Instead, it explores the nature of love and family. And how people can choose to assemble a chosen family, finding the kind of support and loyalty they may never have experienced in their families of origin. Awarded four stars on Goodreads .

Each character is fully drawn and distinctive. Together, they form a tight pack of quirky, smart, troubled, kind, and loyal people. This isn’t the kind of book where I kept rushing to pick it up to find out what happens next. But whenever I did pick up the book, I loved spending time with the people I found inside. And I cared deeply about them.

At the beginning, it’s near the end of World War II and two men stationed in Florence, Italy (Ulysses Temper and his superior officer) have a chance encounter with an older woman — a charismatic art historian who is restoring damaged art. The three form an instantaneous connection around their shared appreciation for art. And though they soon separate, that spark remains.

When the war ends, Ulysses returns to his home in England, where his wife, Peg, has not exactly been “chastely awaiting” his return. Ulysses is once again surrounded by his pre-war friends at the local pub: Cressy (an older man with a not-so-secret crush on Peg), Col (the unsentimental pub owner), and Pete (the pub’s sometime piano player). But Ulysses finds he isn’t able to settle back into his old life. Ultimately, he decides to return to Florence, though not alone.

Florence soon becomes one of the book’s main characters. It’s history, art, food, weather, lifestyle —- it’s impossible to read the beautifully descriptive passages without sharing the author’s obvious love for the city. Ulysses finds Florence feels like a comfortable place to settle. So, he opens a small hotel and settles in among the locals.

The book unfolds over a period of years. Children grow up. Friends age. Florence suffers serious flood damage in the 1960s and weathers assorted political conflicts. And slowly, others from Ulysses’ past wind up joining him.

STILL LIFE is a novel that requires you to pay attention. I recommend reading it slowly. The writing style is unique. There are no quotation marks to make it clear when someone is speaking (versus thinking) and the author primarily writes about everyday episodes in the lives of ordinary people. So you’ll need to be attentive to pick up the important details. If you do, you’ll wind up enjoying a lovely story about how important it is for everyone to seek out and welcome love, in whatever form it comes.

More about the author (and actress), Sarah Winman .

You may be interested in my review of another book by Sarah Winman, TIN MAN .

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Still Life: A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)

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Still Life: A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel) Hardcover – November 2, 2021

Print length 464 pages
Language English
Publisher G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date November 2, 2021
Dimensions 6.25 x 1 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10 0593330757
ISBN-13 978-0593330753
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Still Life by Sarah Winman. A captivating, lively new novel of people brought together...

Editorial Reviews

Man as the Measure of All Things 1944 Somewhere in the Tuscan hills, two English spinsters, Evelyn Skinner and a Margaret someone, were eating a late lunch on the terrace of a modest albergo . It was the second of August. A beautiful summer's day, if only you could forget there was a war on. One sat in shade, the other in light, due to the angle of the sun and the vine-strewn trellis overhead. They were served a reduced menu but celebrated the Allied advance with large glasses of Chianti. Overhead, a low-flying bomber cast them momentarily in shadow. They picked up their binoculars and studied the markings. Ours, they said, and waved. This rabbit's delicious, said Evelyn, and she caught the eye of the proprietor, who was smoking by the doorway. She said, Coniglio buonissimo, signore! The signore put his cigarette in his mouth and raised his arm-part salute, part wave, one couldn't be sure. Do you think he's a Fascist? said Margaret quietly. No, I don't think so, said Evelyn. Although Italians are quite indecisive politically. Always have been. I heard they're shooting them now, the Fascists. Everyone's shooting everyone, said Evelyn. A shell screamed to their right and exploded on a distant hill, uprooting a cluster of small cypress trees. One of theirs, said Margaret, and she held on to the table to protect her camera and wineglass from the shock waves. I heard they found the Botticelli, said Evelyn. Which one? said Margaret. Primavera . Oh, thank God, said Margaret. And Giotto's Madonna from the Uffizi. Rubens's Nymphs and Satyrs and one more-Evelyn thought hard-ah, yes, she said. Supper at Emmaus. The Pontormo! Any news about his Deposition? No, not yet, said Evelyn, pulling a small bone from her mouth. In the distance, the sky suddenly flared with artillery fire. Evelyn looked up and said, I never thought I'd see this again at my age. Aren't we the same age? No. Older. You are? Yes. Eight years. Approaching sixty-four. Are you really ? Yes, she said, and poured out more wine. I pity the swallows, though, she added. They're swifts, said Margaret. Are you sure? Yes, said Margaret. The squealers are swifts, and she sat back and made an awful sound that was nothing like a swift. Swift , said Margaret, emphasizing her point. The swallow is, of course, the Florentine bird, she said. It's a Passeriform, a perching bird, but the swift is not. Because of its legs. Weak feet, long wingspan. It belongs to the order of Apodiformes. Apodiformes meaning "footless" in Greek. The house martin, however, is a Passeriform. Dear God, thought Evelyn. Will this not end? Swallows, continued Margaret, have a forked tail and a red head. And about an eight-year life expectancy. That's depressing. Not even double digits. Do you think swallow years are like dog years? said Evelyn. No, I don't think so. Never heard as much. Swifts are dark brown but appear blackish in flight. There they are again! screamed Margaret. Over there! Where? There! You have to keep up, they're very nippy. They do everything on the wing! Suddenly, out from the clouds, two falcons swooped in and ripped a swift violently in half. Margaret gasped. Did everything on the wing, said Evelyn as she watched the falcons disappear behind the trees. This is a lovely drop of Classico, she said. Have I said that already? You have actually, said Margaret tersely. Oh. Well, I'm saying it again. A year of occupation has not diminished the quality. And she caught the proprietor's eye and pointed to her glass. Buonissimo, signore! The signore took the cigarette out of his mouth, smiled and again raised his arm. Evelyn sat back and placed her napkin on the table. The two women had known one another for seven years. They'd been lovers briefly in the beginning, after which desire had given way to a shared interest in the Tuscan proto-Renaissance-a satisfactory turn of events for Evelyn, less so for Margaret someone. She'd thrown herself into ornithology. Luckily, for Evelyn, the advent of war prevented further pursuit, until Rome that is. Two weeks after the Allies had entered the city, she'd opened the front door of her aunt's villa on Via Magento only to be confronted by the unexpected. Surprise! said Margaret. You can't get away from me that easily! Surprise wasn't the word that had come to Evelyn's mind. Evelyn stood up and stretched her legs. Been sitting too long, she said, brushing crumbs off her linen slacks. She was a striking presence at full height, with intelligent eyes, as quick to the conundrum as they were to the joke. Ten years before, she had committed her graying thatch to blond and had never looked back. She walked over to the signore and in perfect Italian asked for a cigarette. She placed it between her lips and steadied his hand as she leaned toward the flame. Grazie , she whispered, and he pressed the packet firmly into her palm and motioned for her to take it. She thanked him again and moved back to the table. Stop, said Margaret. What? The light on your face. How green your eyes are! Turn a little to me. Stay like that. Margaret, for God's sake. Do it. Don't move. And Margaret picked up her camera and fiddled with the aperture setting. Evelyn drew on the cigarette theatrically (click) and blew smoke into the late-afternoon sky (click), noticing the shift of color, the lowering of the sun, a lone swift nervously circling. She moved a curl of hair away from her frown (click). What's eating you, dear chum? Mosquitoes, probably. I hear a touch of Maud Lin, said Margaret. Thoughts? What is old, d'you think? Cabin fever talking, said Margaret. We can't advance, we can only retreat. That's old, said Evelyn. And German mines, silly! I just want to get into Florence. Do something. Be useful. The proprietor came over and cleared their plates from the table. He asked them in Italian if they would like a coffee and grappa and they said, How lovely, and he told them not to go wandering again, and he told them his wife would go up to their room later and close the shutters. Oh, and would they like some figs? Oh sì, sì. Grazie. Evelyn watched him depart. Margaret said, I've been meaning to ask you. Robin Metcalfe told me you met Forster. Who? Him with a View. Evelyn smiled. Oh, very good. The way Robin Metcalfe tells it, you and Forster were best friends. How ridiculous! I met him across a dining table, if you must know, over dinners of boiled beef, at the ghastly Pensione Simi . We were an impoverished little ship on the banks of the Arno, desperately seeking the real Italy. And yet at the helm was a cockney landlady, bless her soul. Cockney? Yes. Why a cockney? I don't know. I mean, why in Florence? I never asked. Now you would, said Margaret. Now I certainly would, said Evelyn, and she took a cigarette and placed it between her lips. Probably came over as a nanny, said Margaret. Yes. Probably, said Evelyn, opening the matchbox. Or a governess. That'll be it, said Margaret. Evelyn struck a match and inhaled. Did you know he was writing a book? asked Margaret. Good Lord no. He was a recent scholar, if I remember rightly. Covered in the afterbirth of graduation-shy, awkward, you know the type. Entering the world with no experience at all. Weren't we all like that? Yes, I suppose we were, said Evelyn, and she picked up a fig and pressed her thumbs against the soft, yielding skin. I suppose we were, she repeated quietly. She tore the fruit in half and glanced down at the erotic sight of its vivid flesh. She blushed and would blame it on the shift to evening light, on the effect of the wine and the grappa and the cigarettes, but in her heart, in the unseen, most guarded part of her, a memory undid her, slowly-very slowly-like a zip. Strangely charismatic, though, she said, surfacing into the present. Forster was? said Margaret. When he was alone, yes. But his mother's presence suffocated him. Every reprimand was pressure applied to the pillow. Odd relationship. That's what I remember most. Her with a parasol and smelling salts, and him with a well-thumbed Baedeker and an ill-fitting suit. Margaret reached for Evelyn's cigarette. I remember he'd appear in quiet moments. You wouldn't hear him, just see him. Tall and lanky in the corner. Or in the drawing room with a notebook. Scribbling away. Simply observing. Isn't that how it starts? said Margaret, handing back the cigarette. What? A book.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ G.P. Putnam's Sons; First Edition (November 2, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593330757
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593330753
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1 x 9.25 inches
#671 in 20th Century Historical Fiction (Books)
#1,177 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
#3,346 in Literary Fiction (Books)

About the author

Sarah winman.

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Book Club Questions for Still Life by Sarah Winman

By: Author Luka

Posted on Last updated: June 14, 2024

Categories Book Club Questions

Book club questions for Still Life by Sarah Winman take a closer look at the scale of a man, heart of the human experience and the love we all carry with us in every moment – that ultimately binds us together.

Still Life is an immensely rich book, with lovable characters and sweeping storytelling. It’s definitely one of the best books I’ve read in 2022, and I highly recommend it. This is a story so generous, rich, and deepy moving, it is sure to stick with you for a long time. There are so many layers and much to discuss.

The Synopsis

A captivating, bighearted, richly tapestried story of people brought together by love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster, by the celebrated author of Tin Man.

As Ulysses returns home to London, reimmersing himself in his crew at The Stoat and Parot—a motley mix of pub crawlers and eccentrics—he carries his time in Italy with him. And when an unexpected inheritance brings him back to where it all began, Ulysses knows better than to tempt fate, and returns to the Tuscan hills.

With beautiful prose, extraordinary tenderness, and bursts of humor and light, Still Life is a sweeping portrait of unforgettable individuals who come together to make a family, and a deeply drawn celebration of beauty and love in all its forms.

Book Club Questions for Still Life

1. Still Life opens with a fateful meeting between Ulysses and Evelyn. How does this encounter shape the rest of their lives? What did they each take away from that evening?

2. The Stoat and Parot is a major gathering place for many of the characters in this novel. What does the pub mean to each of them? How would you say Ulysses’s found family changes (or not) as they leave the security of the pub?

3. Ulysses is truly surprised by his inheritance of the pensione in Florence, and this fresh start at life includes leaving the only home he’s known. Why do you think he made the decision that he did? What would you have done in Ulysses’s situation?

4. How is mothering and motherhood represented throughout the book, particularly with Alys? What does she learn from her relationship with Peg? How is she cared for by Ulysses and Cress, and how does her upbringing in Florence impact her?

5. In what ways does nature impact the characters and the story? Discuss some examples, such as Cress’s connection with the trees and the devastation of the flood, and how they shape the larger narrative of Still Life.

6. Art, specifically Renaissance art, is a major part of this novel. In what ways are these characters’ lives, particularly Evelyn’s and Ulysses’s, inspired by and shaped by art? Do you have a favorite work of art that has impacted you?

7. Discuss the ways in which E. M. Forster’s presence is felt in Still Life. Have you read A Room with a View? What did you think of Evelyn’s connection to the writer?

8. Do you think Evelyn and Ulysses’s meeting, and then their near misses for decades, are due to sheer coincidence? Or do they feel more like matters of fate? Discuss the differences, if any, between the two.

9. Love, in all its forms, is a major theme in Still Life. Discuss the types of love explored in the novel. How do we see examples of familial, romantic, platonic, unconditional love?

10. What do you think is next for these characters? For Ulysses and Peg? Alys? Col and Peggy and Pete?

Additional Recommendations

Lessons in chemistry by bonnie garmus.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left the family when he was nine years old without a trace. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, his family’s life has been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic. Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change. Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s a story about the power—and limitations—of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero’s unforgettable journey to maturity

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.

Happy reading! ❤️

Book review: Still Life by Sarah Winman

October 16, 2021
Fleur Morrison
Book Reviews
11 Comments

I started Sarah Winman’s Still Life with extremely high expectations after hearing from friends and social media that it was a must-read.

I had also heard that it was set in Italy and having a deep love of the country, having lived for a short time in Italy and travelled there quite a few times, I thought that I would love it.

However, I didn’t, exactly.

Still Life opens in Italy during World War II as two soldiers meet an older woman who is trying to save the art that had been hidden from Nazi forces.

The three share a memorable night of wine and art before going their separate ways.

It then follows the story of Ulysses Temper, the soldier who returns to the UK and a colourful cast of characters who he calls his friends, and ex-wife.

Some of the characters move to Florence after Temper finds he has been left an apartment in the will of a man whose life he had saved while he was a soldier.

From there, the book is a love story to Florence and its art.

While I’m all for both Italy and art, I found the book to be a bit too sentimental. Ulysses was perfect in his kindness, his ex-wife was perfect in her beauty, the older woman was perfect in her glamour and their friend Cress was perfect in his wisdom.

It was all a bit … perfect.

I’ve got something against characters that are one-dimensionally good. Perhaps I am cynical but I believe there is good and bad in everyone and I prefer to see that reflected in the books I read.

Similarly, while Florence is extraordinarily beautiful, it is not without its political and social problems, none which reared their heads in Still Life.

I also felt the book was a little bit slow in parts, which is nice if you’re looking for a relaxing read that mainly focused on beauty and goodness, but for me it was a bit too ponderous. It might be a book for many, but it wasn’t really for me.

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Sounds like a book I would like to read. Don’t want things to develop too fast.

I agree, I found the characters stereotypes and the novel too long.

Still Life was pretentious twaddle. I don’t understand all the positive reviews. It is cliche ridden and predictable and the characters are all unbelievable. The structure is rambling and repetitive and I ended up skimming and then abandoning it. Life is too short to read third rate novels.

I totally agree. I’m halfway through and will finish it, but it’s very poor. There is little character development which means relationships are not believable. This is not an important book.

I couldn’t agree more. Ploughed through this book and finished it mainly because it was our book club choice and thought it was …boring, cringy and way tooo long. The characters as you said were too good to be true, there was no conflict and the the hint was in the title…Still Life.

Ha ha, definitely Still Life! I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to feel this way.

Absolutely agree. I am an avid reader but I found this book boring and an excuse for the author to ‘show off’ her knowledge of art, poetry and Florence. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. The last section on Evelyn was the final straw and I skimmed the rest of the book to the end. Very disappointing.

Thank goodness! I thought it was just me. How convenient that the characters all held ‘modern’ sensibilities that placed them all on what is now considered to be the right side of history. How convenient that Ulysses loved Alys as if she were his own, how convenient that Cressy won big and so on. I bought this novel because it was voted the best novel of 2021 by Dymocks (Australia’s biggest book-seller), but all I can say is that it was formulaic, written to appeal to book club readers and deliberately and shamelessly trading on the cultural heritage of Italy and the beauty of Florence. The descriptions of 1950s Brits cooking traditional Italian fare with all the authenticity of Nonnas was nauseating and frankly, unbelievable. There was also a disrespect towards Catholic Italy that was disappointing and unnecessary, and a suggestion – perhaps I’m wrong – that communism was a viable alternative. Overall, this was a disappointing read.

Concur that this was a self-congratulatory, pseudo-intellectual book filled with trite observations and sentiments. How clever is Alys to recognise the genius of Fellini from the get-go. How nice that in spite of the era, every one is tolerant of everyone else in spite of their sexual preferences (even in Evelyn’s generation, both her father and aunt are completely understanding! Ain’t that swell!). How interesting that it was actually Cress the uneducated polymath who coined the term petrichor in 1952, though first report of it in published literature was not till 1964. So much for academic rigour. Truly nauseating and poorly written novel.

Did not reach beyond page28. A kind of “Eastenders” TV drama cliche ridden prose.

I agree with the foregoing comments. This was pretentious rubbish and devoid of any character development. It was clever, though, of Sarah Winman to name her principal character Ulysses for he was, like Odysseus, “a man of many devices”. Despite that, life is too short to read a novel like Still Life when you can read Henry James.

Roger Turner

NB I had already posted but then noticed an egregious typo so please disregard my first transmission.

book review still life sarah winman

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Does Life Imitate Art or Is It the Other Way Around?

Sarah Winman’s ‘Still Life’ feels like a Saturday night among old friends

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Still Life review: Sarah Winman's exquisite testament to life, love and art is a masterpiece

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