Still Life Summary: Sarah Winman’s Art of Found Family

Last Updated: October 14, 2026

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Still Life by Sarah Winman: A Meeting That Lasts Decades

In August 1944, a British soldier named Ulysses Temper meets a sixty-four-year-old art historian named Evelyn Skinner on a dusty road in Tuscany.

Their conversation lasts only hours, but it echoes through the next thirty-five years of his life.

Sarah Winman’s Still Life follows Ulysses from wartime Italy back to bombed-out East London and eventually to Florence, where an unexpected inheritance changes everything.

Along the way, a pub landlord, a handyman, a parrot, and a child with no blood tie to him become the family he builds rather than the one he was given.

The novel moves between two cities and four decades, tracing how art, grief, and ordinary kindness shape a life.

Who Will Enjoy This Book?

Readers of literary and historical fiction set in post-war Europe.
Anyone drawn to found-family stories built around pubs, piazzas, and shared meals.
Readers interested in art history, Renaissance painting, and Florence.
Those who prefer slow, character-driven narratives over fast plotting.

TL;DR: The Short Version

Still Life is a decades-spanning novel about a soldier, a scholar, and the household they accidentally create. Ulysses Temper returns from war to a broken London, gains a Florentine apartment from a stranger he once comforted, and moves there with a child, an old man, and a parrot.

Key threads to expect:

Found family formed in a London pub and a Florentine pensione.
Art as memory, carried through Pontormo, globes, and Renaissance frescoes.
Near misses between Ulysses and Evelyn that stretch across two decades.
Post-war healing across London, Florence, and the 1966 flood.

Still Life book Summary Sarah Winman (2)

Still Life Summary (Spoilers Ahead)

Spoiler warning: this section describes the plot, including the ending.

In August 1944, Private Ulysses Temper serves with the British Eighth Army in Tuscany. His commanding officer, Captain Alexander St. John Darnley, brings him along when they escort Evelyn Skinner, an art historian searching for hidden Renaissance works.

They spend an evening in a subterranean wine cellar beneath a Tuscan villa. Wine is poured, music plays, and Evelyn explains how painted faces mirror human emotion. Captain Darnley raises a toast: “To this moment!”

Ulysses also visits an elderly Italian art restorer named Arturo Bernadini in a quiet apartment on Piazza Santo Spirito. He offers the man company during a dangerous period. Captain Darnley is later killed in combat.

Back in East London, Ulysses’s wife Peg works at the Stoat and Parrot pub. She begins an affair with an American soldier named Eddie Clayton, who fathers her daughter Alys before disappearing back to the front.

Ulysses returns home in the winter of 1946. His father Wilbur has died, the family globe-making workshop is gone, and Peg asks for a divorce. He grants it without anger and stays close to her.

He moves into the Stoat and Parrot, joining landlord Col Formiloe, handyman Alfred “Old Cress” Cresswell, pianist Piano Pete, and Claude, a blue-fronted Amazonian parrot. He becomes a father figure to Alys.

In March 1953, a lawyer delivers news that Arturo Bernadini has died and left Ulysses his entire estate, including the Florentine apartment. Old Cress advises him to bet everything on the black.

Ulysses, Old Cress, young Alys, and Claude travel to Italy in a blue Jowett Bradford van. They open the Pensione Pappagallo in the apartment, and Ulysses revives his father’s craft by making handmade terrestrial globes.

Meanwhile, Evelyn teaches at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and visits Florence often with the artist Dotty Cunningham. She and Ulysses walk the same streets for years without meeting.

In 1954, nine-year-old Alys encounters Evelyn in the Capponi Chapel while looking at a Pontormo painting. Neither knows who the other is.

Peg marries Ted Holloway, a wealthy insurance agent who isolates her. She keeps her grief over Eddie Clayton unspoken for decades. Alys grows up in Florence among artists and musicians.

In November 1966, the River Arno floods and buries Florence in mud and oil. Volunteers called “Mud Angels” arrive from around the world to rescue books and artworks. Alys joins them at the National Library.

In London, Evelyn sees a newspaper photograph of Ulysses wading through floodwater holding a globe. She travels to Florence, and the two finally meet again after twenty-two years.

Evelyn moves into the pensione permanently. In 1969, Old Cress dies by the river, and Claude dies soon after. The family scatters Cress’s ashes on Monte Ceceri, where Leonardo da Vinci once dreamed of flight.

Eddie Clayton’s wartime friend Glen Mollan arrives in 1975 with news that Eddie loved Peg deeply and died in 1944 while trying to return to her. Peg and Glen later marry.

In October 1979, the extended household gathers to celebrate Evelyn’s ninety-ninth birthday. The novel then returns to 1901, showing twenty-one-year-old Evelyn’s first trip to Florence and her love affair with a maid named Livia.

Still Life ends in 1979 with Evelyn and Ulysses walking through Florence at dusk, having built a life together out of art, friendship, and the people they chose to keep.

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Characters in This Book

Character	Role
Ulysses Temper	British soldier and globe-maker’s son who inherits a Florentine apartment and opens the Pensione Pappagallo.
Evelyn Skinner	Art historian and former Slade lecturer who meets Ulysses in 1944 and later joins the pensione.
Peggy (Peg) Potts	Ulysses’s first wife, who works in London pubs and typing pools and is mother to Alys.
Alfred “Old Cress” Cresswell	East End handyman who moves to Florence and becomes a grandfather figure to Alys.
Alys	Peg’s daughter by Eddie Clayton, raised largely by Ulysses in Florence.
Colin (Col) Formiloe	Landlord of the Stoat and Parrot pub in East London.
Captain Alexander St. John Darnley	Ulysses’s commanding officer in Italy, who introduces him to Florentine art.
Piano Pete	Conscientious objector and pianist who moves to Florence to play music.
Claude	Amazonian parrot at the pub and later the pensione, known for reciting literary lines.
Arturo Bernadini	Italian art restorer whom Ulysses comforts in 1944 and who leaves him his estate.
Dorothy “Dotty” Cunningham	Modern artist and Evelyn’s long-time companion and travel partner.
Ginny Formiloe	Col’s daughter, who collects pub glasses and is cared for by the pub community.
Ted Holloway	London insurance agent who marries Peg.
Eddie Clayton	American soldier who has a brief romance with Peg and dies in France in 1944.
Glen Mollan	Eddie Clayton’s wartime comrade, who later marries Peg.
Jem Gunnerslake	Student of Evelyn’s who travels to Florence as a Mud Angel in 1966.
Romy Peller	American girl in Florence and Alys’s first serious romance.
Massimo	Florentine legal clerk and property agent who assists Ulysses.
Constance Everly	Victorian poet and Evelyn’s first great romantic and artistic mentor.
Mrs. Kamya Kaur	East End shopkeeper who becomes Col’s partner.
The Elderly Contessa	Neighbor in Santo Spirito who becomes a regular dinner guest.
Wilbur and Nora Temper	Ulysses’s parents; Wilbur was a globe-maker, and Nora moved to Nicaragua.

Summary by Chapter

Spoiler warning: the following section outlines events in each part of the book. The novel is divided into nine chronological parts.

Part 1: Man as the Measure of All Things (1944)

Evelyn Skinner’s vehicle breaks down in Tuscany, and Ulysses Temper and Captain Darnley escort her to a villa storing hidden artworks.

In a wine cellar, the three share vintage wine and a conversation about art and mortality. Ulysses also comforts the art restorer Arturo Bernadini in Florence, while in London Peg begins her affair with Eddie Clayton.

Part 2: Somewhere Between an Atom and a Star (1946–53)

Ulysses returns to London to find his father dead, the workshop destroyed, and Peg raising Eddie’s daughter Alys. He moves into the Stoat and Parrot and becomes a father figure to Alys.

In 1952, he and Col and Cress dispose of a gangland corpse in Epping Forest.

A lawyer then arrives with news of Arturo Bernadini’s bequest.

Part 3: The Stuff of Dreams (1953–54)

Ulysses takes Old Cress, Alys, and Claude to Florence and opens the Pensione Pappagallo in the inherited apartment. He begins making globes again and meets the property agent Massimo.

Peg, Col, and Pete visit at Christmas, and Ulysses delivers Evelyn’s greetings at the Dante statue in Piazza Santa Croce.

Part 4: The Most Unlikely-Looking Pair (1954–59)

Evelyn teaches at the Slade and visits Florence with Dotty Cunningham, repeatedly missing Ulysses across the river.

Nine-year-old Alys meets Evelyn in the Capponi Chapel without either recognizing the connection. Peg marries Ted Holloway and grows increasingly isolated in suburban London.

Part 5: La Dolce Vita (1960)

The pensione hosts lively gatherings with Pete at the piano, and fifteen-year-old Alys begins a romance with American teenager Romy Peller.

The two girls run away to a villa in Fiesole, prompting a search by Ulysses and Cress. The household later spends a summer on the island of Giglio.

Part 6: It’s Just the Way of Things (1962–66)

Alys moves to London at seventeen to attend art school and hears Evelyn give a lecture. In Florence, Old Cress’s companion Paola dies, and he ages quickly from grief.

Peg and Ulysses share one intimate reunion before the Arno floods Florence in November 1966.

Part 7: Mud Angels (1966–67)

Florence is buried under mud, sewage, and heating oil, and Alys joins volunteers at the National Library. Evelyn sees a newspaper photograph of Ulysses holding a globe in the floodwater and travels to Italy.

She finds him sweeping Piazza Santo Spirito, and the household reunites over dinner.

Part 8: I Do Love Nothing in the World So Well As You (1968–79)

Evelyn moves into the pensione permanently. Old Cress and Claude die in 1969, and the family scatters Cress’s ashes on Monte Ceceri.

Glen Mollan arrives in 1975 with the truth about Eddie Clayton’s death, freeing Peg from decades of guilt, and Peg and Glen later marry.

Part 9: All About Evelyn

The narrative returns to 1901, when twenty-one-year-old Evelyn first visits Florence and falls in love with a maid named Livia. She also meets a young E. M. Forster and shares a custard doughnut with him.

The novel closes in 1979 as Evelyn and Ulysses walk through Florence at dusk.

Beneath the Surface: What the Novel Holds

Theme	How the Book Presents It
Found Family	A London pub and a Florentine pensione become households built from friendship rather than blood. Ulysses raises Alys, who is not his biological child, and the group absorbs newcomers like Pete, Jem, and Glen over decades.
Art as Memory	Pontormo’s Deposition from the Cross, Renaissance frescoes, and handmade globes recur throughout the story. Arturo’s apartment and the Monuments officers’ rescued paintings tie art to survival and inheritance.
Time and Recovery	The narrative spans 1944 to 1979, tracking how characters carry wartime loss across decades. The 1966 Florence flood becomes a second disaster that reunites people scattered by the first.
Women and Creative Space	Evelyn builds a career in art history and chooses her own relationships across seven decades. Alys grows into an artist, and Peg leaves a controlling marriage to resume singing.
Home and Geography	East London and Florence function as opposing poles, one marked by bomb sites and smog, the other by light and piazzas. Characters repeatedly cross between them in search of where they belong.

Still Life book Summary Sarah Winman (1)

Quotes from Still Life Book

“Two people pulling each other into Salvation is the only theme I find worthwhile.”

“Our turmoil is revealed in those painted faces—sometimes tenderly, sometimes grotesquely, but art becomes a mirror. All the symbolism and the paradox, ours to interpret. That’s how it becomes part of us.”

“The scale of man—spatially—is about midway between the atom and the star.”

“Incipit vita nova… So begins a new life.”

“To this moment!”

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on…”

“We just need to know what the heart’s capable of, Evelyn. And do you know what it’s capable of? I do. Grace and fury.”

Books Like Still Life

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster — Referenced directly in the novel, it follows English travelers whose emotional and romantic lives change under the light of Florence.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières — A WWII Mediterranean novel that mixes humor, tragedy, music, and a community formed across decades.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell — A richly atmospheric Renaissance Italian novel centered on art, female agency, and historical Florence.

The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen — A dual-timeline story linking a British soldier in 1944 Tuscany with a later search for family and inheritance.

Tin Man by Sarah Winman — Winman’s own novel shares the poetic tone and focus on unconventional love, grief, and enduring friendship.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows — A post-war novel about a community formed through letters, shared hardship, and cultural memory.

Book Details at a Glance

Genre & Subgenre: Historical Fiction / Literary Fiction; post-WWII period drama and found-family novel.
Core Narrative Tropes: Found family, life-changing bequest, unlikely lifelong friendship, near misses, artistic awakening, healing after trauma.
Tone & Atmosphere: Warm, lyrical, witty, sensory, and humanistic.
Primary Conflict: Carrying post-war trauma, unrequited love, and personal grief while building a meaningful life through community and art.
Pacing Style: Episodic and character-driven, moving chronologically across thirty-five years.
ISBN: 978-0593330760 (ISBN-10: 0593330765).
Pages: 480.
Book Structure: Nine chronological parts spanning 1944 to 1979, with a final section returning to 1901.
Author Background: Sarah Winman is a British novelist and former actress, also the author of When God Was a Rabbit, A Year of Marvellous Ways, and Tin Man.