Badly written and poorly imagined - Rated 
One of the reviewers mentioned William Boyd's "Any Human Heart". How I wished this book had been a tenth as good as that fine novel. Sadly, it's not. In fact, it's quite astonishingly bad, especially compared with some of his earlier fiction. I would concede that it's extremely difficult to write about the artistic process, and harder still to describe the inner and outer life of a painter in particular. Sadly, McGrath fails dismally. At no time was either Jack or Vera convincingly portrayed. Instead of real characters we had ciphers and, worse than that, stereotypical ciphers. There's absolutely no sense of time or place - for the first hundred pages or so I thought it was set in Victorian times. And the resolution - please spare us another inappropriate liaison. What's just as bad is that the book was littered with comma splices - a sure sign of a writer well outside their comfort zone.
Pseudo intellectual fodder - Rated
I hesitated about filing a review as I only made it half way through this book. However, I wish I had read something other than glowing reviews before purchasing it. I found the characters depressing and the narrative rambling. Thinking back to some of the overtly positive reviews I've read I can't help but think of The Emperors New Clothes.
Portraits of the Artists as Young, Middle Aged and Old Man and Woman! - Rated 
I found Patrick McGrath directly through Amazon's SO useful review guidelines, when I spotted a review for another book VERY in accord with my own feelings, and checked out the reviewer to see what else they were reading (thankyou Phillipe Horak from Zug!!!)
Now the Amazon review system has introduced me to a new writer for me, and I shall definitely be reading more!
Something about McGrath's style, and also the subject matter - the central character is an artist - reminded me of a couple of William Boyd's books - Any Human Heart and The New Confessions - both in 'obsessive love' territory, and explorations into the 'selfishness obsessiveness' of the artistic drive itself. And as someone who rates Boyd VERY highly, to say McGrath stands comparison is for me to rate this highly.
The only reason I couldn't 5 star this is that something - and annoyingly I couldn't work out precisely WHAT, stopped me from believing in the narrator's gender. McGrath writes the story of two obsessive, driven artists, Jack Rathbone and Vera Savage, driven both by their art and their relationship with each other, through the eyes of Jacks older sister Gin. I kept being uncomfortably shocked, from time to time, when the 'sister' relationship was mentioned - because the narrator's voice seemed definitely male, not female to me.
The book is written in a cool, slightly disengaged manner, which actually works well, given the febrile and excessive nature of the two main characters and plot drivers.
the end! - Rated 
I wont bother to elaborate on the facts of the book as there are already enough good reviews.
It is sufficient to say that you "must" read this book if only for the revelations right at the very end.
As ever with Mcgrath one has a sense of impatience to get to the end, but you still want to savour every turn of phrase on the pages.
I just loved the ending.
Hes an absolute master and I cant wait for the next book!
A spellbinding narrative - Rated
In his novel, Mr McGrath tells the story of painter Jack Rathbone, a figure similar to the latter-day Paul Gauguin. The narrative is performed in an emotional manner by his sister Gin. Jack's life as an artist starts in London where he attends St Martin's School of Art with his sister. But one day, at the age of seventeen, Jack falls under the spell of Vera Savage, a thirty year old artist from Glasgow. He is immediately attracted by her petulant manner, her flamboyant character although it quickly appears that this woman is neither very clean nor often sober. Gin deeply resents this "painted creature" but she can do nothing to prevent his brother from following Vera to New York. There, Jack is profoundly unhappy, sensing that Vera belongs to a world which offers no place for him, which even rejects him and Jack finds himself tramping the streets with a feeling of anger and misery.
Finally Jack and Vera decide to take a passage to Cuba but due to some political unrest, they are forced to leave the island and end up in Port Mungo in Honduras. There, in spite of being engaged in a torrid and complicated love affair with his wife, Jack can finally devote himself entirely to his painting. Their two daughters Peg and Ann are brought up in their parents' chaos. It is mainly Jack who raises them because Vera succumbs to infidelity and alcoholism and her chronic restlessness makes her an impossible mother. After their return to New York 20 years later, the sequels of the time they spent in Port Mungo are still there, notably Peg's death which is surrounded by a halo of mysterious circumstances.
In Mr McGrath's novel, human beings are held in a thrall by love, hatred, secrecy, art and complicity and despite their efforts they are unable to escape their fate.
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