Award-winning author Steve Stern’s latest novel, THE VILLAGE IDIOT, is now available in paperback. This Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2022 is an imaginative portrait of expressionist painter Chaim Soutine's life --- from his impoverished beginnings in an East European shtetl, to his Cinderella patronage by the American collector Albert Barnes, and his perilous flight from the Nazi occupation of France. In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, Stern talks about how his approach to writing this book differed from that of his previous work; what drew him to write about Soutine in the form of a fictional biography; and who he would like to see involved in a potential film adaptation of THE VILLAGE IDIOT.