In her new comic novel, author paints portrait of women in artist's life

Kate Christensen is married to a photographer/painter — and she has always wanted to be a painter herself. "Although I have no talent whatsoever," she said.

"The world of visual art seems so much more sensual than the world of writing," Christensen said by phone from her home in Brooklyn. "It seems more fun, so I've always envied painters."

A native of Arizona and California, Christensen has written three popular novels: "In the Drink," "Jeremy Thrane" and "The Epicure's Lament."

Knowing all of this, it could have been predictable, then, that "The Great Man" is a comic novel set in the world of painting:

Oscar Feldman, a New York City painter of the 1940s and '50s, specialized in the female nude. When he dies in 2001, he leaves a wife, Abigail; an autistic son; and a sister, Maxine, herself a notable abstract painter — probably a better painter than Oscar. What most people never knew was that Feldman also had a lengthy relationship with a mistress, Teddy St. Cloud — and they had twin daughters together.

This book is about the aging but sexy women left behind by Feldman — and his kids from both relationships. But it is also about the artistic temperament.

The plot begins as two potential biographers start nosing around the family to obtain interviews so they can write about Feldman's life, and they discover that he had two families. Ralph Washington and Henry Burke don't know each other, but their personalities and their approaches to their individual biographies become a study in opposites.

These two delve deeply into Oscar Feldman's past. They search out his friends, and especially the women in his life, and conduct probing interviews, through which the women analyze Oscar and discover that they like each other.

The hook, or "secret," of the novel comes in the middle. Without giving too much away, it is the admission made by Maxine that she had a bet with Oscar that he could not do an abstract painting to match hers. He accepted the challenge and said she had to produce a female nude in his style. The test would be that each of their agents would display the finished products as the work of the other.

The result of that painting challenge between brother and sister becomes crucial to understanding the art and attitudes of both Oscar and Maxine. It is definitely the high point of the novel.

Christensen said the women in her novel were inspired by her own mother, now 71. "(She) has always been young and vital and sexy. She is happy and fulfilled — and right now is on the way to Alaska on a road trip with the guy she fell in love with at 65. I dedicated the book to her."