THE BELFAST TELEGRAPH

Belfast, Antrim, Northern Ireland

20 April 1959

(page 7)

Reviews.

When Maurice Utrillo died four years ago, his reputation as a painter had declined. Nevertheless, Stephen and Ethel Longstreet have thought it worthwhile to base a novel, Man of Montmartre (Weldenfield & Nicolson, 16s) on his wayward life.

It is not a very good novel, despite the promising material—dipsomania, religious conversion, sundry scandals, a mother who modelled for Renoir before becoming a fashionable painter herself.

The Longstreets’ formula is to work in as many names as possible—snippety references covering everyone from Picasso to Gertrude Stein and the black magic of Aleister Crowley.