Although not as sensationally troubled as the homicidal Caravaggio or the suicidal van Gogh, the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti possessed an impressive array of psychopathologies. Impotent, obsessive-compulsive—from childhood onward, he could only fall asleep after placing his shoes and socks in a certain manner—and a frequenter of prostitutes, Giacometti spent most of his life in a tiny, masochistically Spartan studio where he devoted as much time to destroying as creating his famous art works. Nor were his pathologies limited to his behavior. His sculpture, especially during his surrealist period, displayed a marked preoccupation with such perverse themes as androgyny, sadism, and castration. Combine this with Giacometti's hard-won artistic accomplishments, the glittering milieu of bohemian Paris, and the sculptor's apparent intimacy with every French cultural luminary from Picasso and Balthus to Sartre and Lacan, and one has all the ingredients for a lively, psychoanalytically informed biography.