From the start, Paul Theroux's ["Picture Palace"] takes us by surprise. In the first place, it's less exotic than most of his books, which tend to be set in far-off countries and to be peopled by characters who are foreign at least in outlook, if not in fact. It lacks the snap and crackle of, say, "The Family Arsenal," his best-known novel, and draws its energy instead from internal events: the unfolding and shaking out of old memories, the slow evolution of character over years and years.

There's also the surprise of finding that "Picture Palace" is not what the first few pages lead us to expect. That is, it's not, thank heaven, one of those books about famous but bored, crotchety, eccentric old artists gracelessly enduring the young biographer/sycophants who are nibbling around the edges of their lives. It's true that Maude Coffin Pratt is a...