From the turn of the century to pre-World War days, this is a long, plot-rich novel of a little French boy who became a famous artist. After a terrorized, repressed childhood, Paul Landreau runs away at fourteen starts a life of adventure and romance that takes him to New York, Chicago, Paris, and back to the coast to retire a success. As an art student in New York he meets the girl he eventually marries but not until after a youthfully happy marriage, a long, tortured affair with a nymphomanic model, does he realize that he loves Cathy... Competently plotted- for high-grade rentals.