Yea, what he said! 

Cripes, how the heck does one follow that? Perhaps you should have tiltled your post "Deconstructing Vincent". Very good analysis, imo.

The problem that I had with the main character, Vincent, was how he was dealing (or lack thereof) with his own emotional instability. The tell-tale signs were all there in place (emotional trauma suffered from witnessing his mother's death, the subsequent bad dreams he endured as a result of that murder, emotional outbursts, etc.) yet it seemed to me that he was in denial that he had a problem and chose to ignore the need to seek out any help for it. More importantly, why didn't his friends try to get him any help? The fact that he nearly beat a man to death for abusing his wife on a public street in front of Lisa should have cued her in that Vincent needed some kind of professional help. Or how he would suddenly blurt out to her (twice) to "leave me alone" for no apparent reason was another key indicator of his instability. He was enveloped in this deep dark depression and was constantly exuding all of this negativity, yet he's allowed to go through life like this untreated? To be honest, Lisa realized that Vincent did have some emotional problems and she did try to offer him solace by getting him to talk to her but it was taken no further than that. Vincent eventually confided (somewhat) with Lisa when he told her about his "one dream" and why he painted in such dreary colors as a means to rid himself of it.

But for any of this to have credibility, one would have to believe that attempts were made to get his life straightened out professionally...and that just wasn't the case at all. His mentioning to Lisa that his childhood in the orphanage consisted of screams in the night due to his bad dreams and alienating himself from all the others seems to support this. Everyone just seemed to stand idly by and allow his situation to go from bad to worse.

If it wasn't for that I would have rated it higher than the 3 that I gave it, otherwise, it was a very good story. Of course I did listen to it last night at 2 am, so it's possible that I might have missed something with how this was being addressed.

I also found it odd with how Vincent acquiesced with Galinari to make a sculpture of his parents, but then he suddenly freaks out when he discovers that Galinari used a different "medium" by casting their likeness in wax, depicting the scene of the murder. What was Vincent expecting when he agreed to allow him to sculpt BOTH of his parents? Why didn't he inquire further when Galinari mentioned wanting to sculpt his father as well? That would have cued me in that there was something more to this than meets the eye.

Like I said, it was a good story UNT...and kudos to you for an excellent analysis.