This didn't quite do it for me--I think Boyle was trying too hard to write a Novel about an Artist.
Weird narrative voice (one of his apprentices), never figured out why he chose to move backwards in time, and the random footnotes annoyed me. I started to skip them, but they're footnotes and I'm a historian, so I have to read them. . .
There was some weird overlap between the stories because of the going backwards. I knew very little about Wright's loves after Mamah and his first wife, so that was interesting, but the writing was stiff.
None of the characters are terribly likable, but I knew that going in. I infinitely prefered Loving Frank--I kept trying to decide if I was judging this book too harshly because I liked that one so much. I don't think I did.