Moon and Sixpence

The Moon and Sixpence is a 1919 short novel by William
Somerset Maugham based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin. The story is
told in episodic form by the first-person narrator as a series of glimpses into
the mind and soul of the central character, Charles Strickland, a middle aged
English stock broker who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his
desire to become an artist.

— Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.