num_pages: 615
description: Hurtle Duffield, a painter, coldly dissects the weaknesses of any and all who enter his circle. His sister's deformity, a grocer's moonlight indiscretion, the passionate illusions of the women who love him-all are used as fodder for his art. It is only when Hurtle meets an egocentric adolescent whom he sees as his spiritual child does he experience a deeper, more treacherous emotion in this tour de force of sexual and psychological menace that sheds brutally honest light on the creative experience.
language: English
title: The Vivisector
titlecomplete: The Vivisector
characters: Nance Lightfoot, Rhoda Courtney, Maurice Caldicott, Hero Pavoussi, Hurtle Duffield, Alfreda Courtney, Olivia Davenport
genres: Fiction, Australia, Literature, Classics, Nobel Prize, Novels, Art, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 1017
places: Australia
awards: awardedAt: 28800000
name: Booker Prize
category: The Lost Man Booker Prize
publisher: Penguin