In August 2009, Gualtiero Agnello, a 94-year-old artist and gallery owner, participates in an interview with journalist Patrice Arnofsky concerning the life and death of Josephus Jones, a Black artist whose death decades earlier was officially ruled accidental. Agnello disputes this conclusion, asserting that Jones could not have accidentally fallen into the narrow well where his body was found. As the interview progresses, Agnello recounts his first meeting with Jones in 1957 at an art exhibition, where Jones impressed him with his discernment and revealed that he was an artist carrying samples of his work. After reviewing Jones’s paintings—works Agnello describes as “modern primitive” and created without formal training—Agnello arranged to meet him through Jones’s employer, contractor Angus Skloot. Jones explained that he began painting using leftover materials from construction jobs.

As Agnello narrates these events, the boundary between past and present dissolves, and he becomes immersed in memory. He recalls Jones’s family history, including his grandfather’s enslavement and subsequent relocation to Chicago, his parents’ working lives, and the skills Jones learned from his father. Jones and his brother Rufus eventually relocated to Three Rivers, Connecticut, where they worked for Skloot and lived on his property. Agnello describes Jones’s early artistic struggles, including a poorly received gallery show in which audiences criticized the frequent depiction of nude women. Despite maintaining contact for a time, Agnello was unable to help Jones sell his work, and their relationship faded, particularly as Rufus develops a serious drug addiction that Jones could not afford to treat.

The two reconnected in 1959 when Agnello served as a judge at an art festival where Jones had submitted a controversial painting depicting himself and a woman as Adam and Eve. Agnello awarded the painting first prize, provoking outrage among festival organizers, which he viewed as evidence of art’s power to challenge audiences. Shortly thereafter, Agnello learned of Jones’s death through a radio report and attended his funeral, where he encountered Rufus, visibly affected by addiction, and heard others express doubts about the official explanation of Jones’s death. Rufus himself later died in a flood.

The interview returns to the present as Arnofsky engages Agnello in discussion of his own artistic career and personal history. They reference other artists connected to his life, including Annie Oh, whose work is displayed in his home and whose upcoming wedding to Viveca Christopholous-Shabbas he plans to attend. Arnofsky notes recurring figures in Agnello’s paintings, particularly a young girl named Fanny, whom Agnello associates with his artistic breakthrough. He recalls how, while studying in Chicago, he was inspired by a young Black girl skipping rope, which helped him move beyond imitation and develop his own artistic style.

Agnello also recounts his family’s immigration from Italy following the destruction of his father’s tailoring business, his artistic education, and aspects of his personal life, including his son’s career in television production and his enduring devotion to his late wife, Anja. He reflects on discovering aspects of Anja’s inner life only through her journals after her death. When asked whether his art conceals meaning, Agnello suggests that its significance often reveals itself gradually, explaining, “I feel as if my work is coming not so much from me as through me” (36).

After Arnofsky departs, Agnello remains absorbed in memory until his housekeeper interrupts him for lunch. As he prepares to return to daily routines, he briefly reflects once more on Fanny before attending to practical concerns, including responding to the wedding invitation.