A stylish, ambitious novel—touching on themes of power, money, and desire—that evokes the art world and all of its moral complexities.
Thomas Haller has achieved the kind of fame that most artists only dream of: shows in London and New York, paintings sold for a fortune. The vision he presents to the world is one of an untouchable genius at the top of his game. It is also a lie.
Between his ruthless new dealer and a property mogul obsessed with his work, the appetite for Thomas and his art is all-consuming. Who is the real Thomas Haller? His oldest friend and former dealer, Lorna, might once have known—before Thomas traded their early intimacy for international fame.
On the eve of his latest show, the luminaries of the art world gather. But the sudden death of a young man has put everyone on edge—and so begins a chain of events that will lead a group of friends back into the past to confront who they have become.
A story of deception, power-play, and longing, The Violet Hour exposes the unsettling underbelly of the art world, asking, who is granted admission to a world that seems to glitter and shimmer, and who is left outside, their faces pressed to the glass?
Early praise for The Violet Hour:
“Cahill allows us a private view of the art world in all its rancid glamor. The artist Thomas Haller—like Wilde's Dorian Gray—has sold his soul. As painters, gallerists and collectors move between New York and the Venice Biennale, auction houses and apartments hung with Mapplethorpes or Picassos, a reckoning is coming. Pulsing with violence and longing, this is a sumptuous, sinister morality tale.”
“I stayed up way past my bedtime reading The Violet Hour and it's brilliant. I'm really in awe of the prose, which is so elegant . . . and the human drama of it is just pitch perfect. I'm so glad to have read it. Hypnotic.”
"I'm overwhelmed by the beauty of James Cahill's writing and storytelling. There is such mastery over language and character here, in this disarmingly immersive tale of the infinite potency—and at times the sense of the vacuous futility—of art and the artist.”
“I greatly enjoyed this compelling and beautifully written novel, set in the rarefied world of high-end art, exploring the complex ambiguity and contradictions of contemporary life and personal relationships. I found the author's eye and ear for the nuanced detail of today's art world ritual unusually acute and often unnervingly familiar.”
