The Homemade God

The novel opens with a prologue set years after the main events. Goose, now in his mid-forties, reflects on the summer his father, Vic Kemp, drowned in an Italian lake and he went with his three sisters to fetch him home. The sound of flip-flops still brings it all back: the heat wave, the beauty of the water, and the mysterious young widow, Bella-Mae, whose presence split the siblings apart. Goose is now a man sending invitations his sisters agree to but never attend.

The story returns to March 2015, when Vic, a seventy-six-year-old self-taught painter, summons his four adult children to a London noodle bar: Netta, 40, a litigation lawyer; Susan, 39, married to a retired GP named Warwick; Goose, 36, Vic's studio assistant; and Iris, 33, a waitress. Their mother, Martha, died of ovarian cancer when the children were young. When Iris was six, Vic painted her for his famous Child's Play, an experience that left her with lasting anxiety, rigid food rules, and panic attacks. Vic now appears radically changed, thin and clean-shaven, drinking herbal tea instead of alcohol. He announces he has met a twenty-seven-year-old named Bella-Mae online, that she has moved into his flat, and that they plan to marry without his children present. Netta openly questions whether Bella-Mae is after his money.

Background chapters reveal Vic's history. He grew up fatherless, taught himself to paint by copying Old Masters, and built a commercial empire with his dealer and best friend, Harry Lucas. Despite selling originals for six figures, Vic was never accepted by the serious art world. Before meeting Bella-Mae, he experienced a six-month creative block, lying to his children about a major new painting.

Netta devises a strategy: The siblings will ignore Bella-Mae, believing the relationship will burn out. Instead, Vic grows more obsessed and secretive, then visits the studio to announce that Bella-Mae will replace Harry as his dealer. Goose is devastated, displaced from his father's working life. A week later, Vic texts that they have left for Villa Carlotta, the family's summer home on Isola San Giulio in Lake Orta, Italy. In late May, he texts a wedding photo. The siblings hold firm through June, but in early July Vic sends desperate late-night messages. Before Netta can act on her growing unease, the news arrives: Vic has drowned during an early-morning swim.

Susan receives the call while shopping and drives overnight to Orta alone, where she encounters Laszlo, Bella-Mae's cousin, removing bags from the villa. Goose walks over 20 miles in shock to the home of Harry and Harry's wife, Shirley. Netta discovers there is no will. Under the rules of intestacy, which govern inheritance when someone dies without a will, Bella-Mae stands to inherit a large portion of Vic's estate.

The four siblings converge on Lake Orta. The villa has been scrubbed clean and stripped of Vic's presence, the garret studio emptied. There is no sign of a painting, a phone, or a will. Netta demands an autopsy and begins investigating. Laszlo claims Vic swam into thick mist the morning he died, but a local boatman who found the body tells Netta there was no mist when Vic entered the water; it rolled in 15 minutes later.

The siblings meet Bella-Mae at a modest hotel. She is nothing like they imagined: young, ordinary, grieving in a shabby bathrobe. She hands them Vic's phone and says she plans to leave. Days later, she reverses course, returning in a black suit. She insists Vic be cremated in Orta and flatly denies any last painting, claiming he never lifted a brush in Italy. She and Laszlo move into the villa.

Bella-Mae forms individual relationships with each sibling, probing their vulnerabilities. She becomes Iris's confidante, lending her feminist books. She tells Goose she recognized him as an artist, challenging him to commit to his work. She gives Susan a revealing dress and mentions that Laszlo finds her desirable. Susan, starved for passion after a passionless marriage, begins a physical affair with Laszlo.

Netta discovers proof that Bella-Mae lied: An art supplies shop owner confirms Vic ordered paints weeks before his death and was excited about finishing his masterpiece. At a tense dinner, Netta accuses Bella-Mae of poisoning Vic through her herbal teas. Iris, emboldened by Bella-Mae, attempts to eat red and green foods for the first time in years, defying the rigid rules that have governed her since Child's Play. She collapses with a severe reaction and cuts her head.

Harry arrives and temporarily steadies the family, but a scathing New Yorker article calls Vic an amateur copyist, and a major gallery withdraws interest. At a lunch Harry hosts, Iris announces she has been having an affair with Harry for four years. Susan slaps her. The three sisters tear into each other with decades of buried grievances. When they are spent, Bella-Mae slowly claps.

She reveals that a painting exists and that the critic was right. Laszlo retrieves a bin bag from the hotel safe. Inside is a small, crudely painted still life of apples signed with a flourish. It is a direct copy of watercolors Goose created and destroyed at a failed exhibition 12 years earlier, when Vic dismissed his son's work so cruelly that Goose burned the paintings. Harry tells Goose the truth: Vic's cruelty was not honest criticism but jealousy, born from recognizing his son's genuine talent.

The siblings scatter. Netta flies home and never drinks again, eventually entering rehab. Susan sleeps with Laszlo, who immediately abandons her; she confesses to Warwick and leaves for Paris. Iris departs with Harry. Goose stays alone at the villa, where he and Bella-Mae coexist without meeting, leaving small gifts on the kitchen table. An apple triggers Goose's first artistic impulse in 12 years. Bella-Mae gives him Vic's painting along with matches and lighter fuel. Instead of burning it, Goose paints over it with yellow emulsion, covering his father's work with a blank surface.

The autopsy confirms Vic died of arrhythmia, an undetected heart condition. No foul play is involved. He is cremated in Orta, and the villa is sold. A chapter titled "Mirror Image" retells the story from Bella-Mae's perspective: She genuinely loved Vic and was pressured by him into marriage. She saw Goose was the real artist and kept Vic's failed painting when he asked her to destroy it. She observed the siblings' fractures and, as an artist, could not help testing how deep they went.

In the years that follow, Susan trains at Le Cordon Bleu and opens a restaurant in Paris. Netta gets sober and takes a part-time legal position. Iris settles in a commune in Italy's Central Apennines and has a daughter. Goose begins painting botanical watercolors and becomes a celebrated artist. Bella-Mae gains recognition for monumental sculptures designed to dissolve over time.

Ten years later, Goose meets Billy Mason, a textile artist, and they fall in love. Billy insists the sisters attend their wedding. Each agrees on the condition she will not have to speak to the others. At the reception, Billy sends all three to the kitchen on separate pretexts. Susan notices Iris is heavily pregnant. Slowly, tersely, they begin passing instructions about ice and supplies: fragile but real contact after a decade apart.

The novel closes with Bella-Mae's monumental bronze sculpture installed in Hyde Park: a thirty-foot male figure whose body is composed of domestic objects such as buttons, paintbrushes, children's shoes, and paint tubes. Tattooed on his wrist are the words "This is my truth." Titled The Homemade God, the sculpture towers above the park, awe-inspiring yet seemingly on the verge of growing too large, as if one false move might cause everything to fall apart.