This is a massive and wonderful book about an amazing person. I've read several books about Vincent, both fiction and non-fiction and I thought I knew a lot about Vincent's life, but Naifeh and Smith provide a lot more information than any of the others I've read and do it well.

Having recently read Carol Wallace's Leaving Van Gogh with Goodread's Art Lovers group, I must say that I think her book should be banned for using real people in a fiction that is so far from the known facts.

Naifeh and White make a thoroughly convincing case for Vincent's illness having been temporal lobe epilepsy. In fact, that was the diagnosis at the hospital in Arles where he was first treated for his mental illness after he mutilated his ear. Why so many other theories about his illness clouded the issue is unclear to me, when the original diagnosis and all his symptoms pointed directly to temporal lobe epilepsy.

And finally, the short discussion about Vincent's death and why the authors do not believe it was a suicide, is also totally convincing. Reading their assertions and the reasons for them (both pertaining to the diagnosis of his illness and the cause of his death) leaves no room for any other theory, as far as I'm concerned. If for no other reason, the fact that all the painting gear that he had taken with him that day as well as the resolver that he was shot with were never found would point to it NOT being a suicide. Poor wonderful, talented, brilliant Vincent.

This is an essential book for anyone who is truly interested in Vincent van Gogh.