Tiepolo Blue

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‘The best novel I have read for ages. My heart was constantly in my throat as I read… There is so much to enjoy, to contemplate, to wonder at, and to be lost in.’ STEPHEN FRY

‘The smart, sexy read you need in 2022. Expect to see it on prize lists as well as Instagram feeds… Not only an addictive page-turner, Cahill’s book taps into the tensions and suspicions between generations that feels incredibly relevant for our testy times.’ EVENING STANDARD

Ben turns and grins ironically. ‘When you stopped just now and looked at the sky, you weren’t measuring it. You weren’t thinking about classical proportion. You were feeling something.’

Cambridge, 1994. Professor Don Lamb is a revered art historian at the height of his powers, consumed by the book he is writing about the skies of the Venetian master Tiepolo. However, his academic brilliance belies a deep inexperience of life and love.

When an explosive piece of contemporary art is installed on the lawn of his college, it sets in motion Don’s abrupt departure from Cambridge to take up a role at a south London museum. There he befriends Ben, a young artist who draws him into the anarchic 1990s British art scene and the nightlife of Soho.

Over the course of one long, hot summer, Don glimpses a liberating new existence. But his epiphany is also a moment of self-reckoning, as his oldest friendship – and his own unexamined past – are revealed to him in a devastating new light. As Don’s life unravels, he suffers a fall from grace that that shatters his world into pieces.

‘Tiepolo Blue really has blown me away… The last debut novel I read that had this much talent buzzing around inside it was Alan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming-Pool Library.‘ ROBERT DOUGLAS-FAIRHURST