TIEPOLO BLUE by James Cahill selected by Her Majesty Queen Camilla for Series Sixteen of The Queen’s Reading Room

We are delighted to announce that Her Majesty Queen Camilla has selected James Cahill’s debut novel TIEPOLO BLUE as one of her books for Season Sixteen of The Queen’s Reading Room, a charity and online book club that works ‘to celebrate and promote the power and benefits of reading and is on a mission to help more people find and connect with books which enrich their lives.’

The Queen’s Reading Room will be sharing James’ insights into the book, exclusive content and Queen Camilla’s own personal words of recommendation for the book on their Instagram page and on their website from 22 November until the 5 of December. TIEPOLO BLUE follows recent selections including Robert Harris’ ARCHANGEL, THE HOUSE OF DOORS by Tan Twan Eng and the E.F. Benson classic MAPP AND LUCIA, as well as fellow Blake Friedmann author Peter James, featured for his GRACE series of novels in December 2021, and later described by Queen Camilla as the writer of her favourite fictional detective. Alongside TIEPOLO BLUE, Season 16 will also include YOU ARE HERE by David Nicholls, LES MISÉRABLES by Victor Hugo and THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES by Edmund de Waal.

James Cahill’s debut novel TIEPOLO BLUE was published by Sceptre in Summer 2022 and shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. It was later named one of the Best Books of 2022 by the BBC, and was widely acclaimed by readers and critics alike. The Evening Standard wrote: ‘This divine debut from art critic and academic James Cahill is the smart, sexy read you need in 2022… 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.’

James Cahill’s second novel, THE VIOLET HOUR, will be published by Sceptre in February 2025.

Set in Cambridge, 1994, TIEPOLO BLUE follows Professor Don Lamb, 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, Don’s 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.

Image: Darren Wheeler

About James Cahill

James Cahill was born in London. Over the past decade, he has worked in the art world and academia, combining writing and research with a role at a leading contemporary art gallery. He is currently a Research Fellow in Classics at King’s College London. His writing on art has appeared in publications including The Burlington Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The London Review of Books. He was the lead author and consulting editor of FLYING TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN (Phaidon, 2018), a survey of classical myth in art from antiquity to the present day. He was the co-curator of ‘The Classical Now’, an exhibition at King’s College London (March-April 2018), examining the relationships between ancient, modern and contemporary art.

Praise for TIEPOLO BLUE

‘Beautifully captures disorientation, tenderness and heat without tipping into excess…an electric new novel written by an author skilled in the evocation of vertiginous, heightened emotion.’ – Michael Donkor, The Guardian, ‘Book of the Day’

‘[An] arresting debut novel… [the prose] has a masterly attention to (especially visual) detail and in an irresistibly propulsive, almost swaggering style.’ – Literary Review

‘Simply magnificent…TIEPOLO BLUE really has blown me away: the gorgeous phrase-making; the sure-footed pacing; the (re-)immersion in a world I know, or knew, in a way that is both hard-edged with historical detail and almost hallucinatory.’ – Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, author and former Man Booker judge

‘The spirit of E.M. Forster is alive and well in James Cahill.’ – Edmund White

‘This is the best novel I have read for ages. It is so beautifully written, not a false note in any sentence. [Cahill’s] presentation of the agonising clash of aesthetics, of culture, of generations… it’s just masterly… It all grips you like a thriller. 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

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TIEPOLO BLUE By James Cahill shortlisted for Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award

Picture: Authors’ Club

TIEPOLO BLUE, James Cahill’s electric debut, has advanced to the shortlist for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award.

The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award was established in 1954, making it the longest-running UK prize for debut fiction and, overall, the third oldest literary prize in Britain. Past winners include Gail Honeyman, Jackie Kay and the late Gilbert Adair, also a Blake Friedmann client. This year’s winner will be revealed at dinner on 24 May, to be held at the National Liberal Club.

Also shortlisted alongside James are: THE DICTATOR’S WIFE by Freya Berry, MY NAME IS YIP by Paddy Crewe, WHEN WE WERE BIRDS by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, BLACK BUTTERFLIES by Priscilla Morris, and THE WHALEBONE THEATRE by Joanna Quinn.

Lucy Popescu, the chair of the judging panel, said: ‘We are proud to recommend six exceptional debuts. These dazzling novelists cover a range of subjects from art and privilege, love and loss, knowledge and selfhood, the pursuit of power and the devastating consequences of war. We travel with them through eastern Europe to the American Frontier, from England’s past to Trinidad today.’

TIEPOLO BLUE follows the unravelling of revered art historian Donald Lamb. Freed from the constraints of academia, it looks like the anarchic contemporary art scene of 1990s London might be his salvation, but he soon suffers an earth-shattering fall from grace that leaves him questioning everyone and everything.

TIEPOLO BLUE was published in hardback by Sceptre in June 2022 to great acclaim. It attracted widespread praise, including from Patrick Gale and Stephen Fry (the latter describing it as ‘The best novel I have read for ages’), and was also included in the BBC’s and Times Literary Supplement’s ‘Best of 2022’ lists. It will be published in paperback on 27 April 2023.

James is currently writing his second novel, THE VIOLET HOUR, a sweeping psychological drama and satire of the international art world, which will be published in hardback by Sceptre in summer 2024.

Praise for TIEPOLO BLUE

‘Startlingly impressive . . . a heavily perfumed, sexually tender, psychologically acute novel’ – Claire Allfree, Daily Mail

‘The story of Tiepolo Blue and its people have invaded my dreams . . . Don’s disintegration is painful to read, but it all grips you like a thriller. 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

‘Not only an addictive pageturner, Cahill’s book taps into the tensions and suspicions between generations that feel incredibly relevant for our testy times’ – Jessie Thompson, Evening Standard

‘The spirit of E. M. Forster is alive and well in James Cahill. The same palpating of damaged moral tissue, the same psychological canniness, the same gently invoked erudition, the same exactitude and eloquence’ – Edmund White

‘The plot is propulsive, though the crafted ambience of unease simultaneously destabilizes the reader at every turn . . . It’s a measure of Cahill’s sleight of hand that he manages to inject his plot with such page-turning momentum’ – Lucasta Miller, TLS

‘Tells a gripping tale of the worlds of traditional academia and art history pitted against those of contemporary art, each failing horribly to understand the other. As a result, all becomes infused with satirical comedy and ghastly tragedy’ – Norman Rosenthal

‘I just devoured Tiepolo Blue, I could not put it down. The longing, the beauty, the detail, the complexity, the art, the intellect and the emotion . . . What a triumph!’ – Paul Kindersley

‘Interrogating beauty and meaning in art, Tiepolo Blue rewards rereading . . . a stylish tale of love and long-game revenge’ – Rebecca Swirsky, Royal Academy Magazine

‘Dizzying and exciting and unsettling, and beautifully told’ – Reverend Richard Coles, ‘Big Writers on Their Best Reads of 2022’, Daily Mail

‘This is a novel full of suspense and surprise. It made me laugh and brought back memories of a time in my own life. I missed the characters as soon as I’d finished’ – Sarah Lucas

‘The musings of the book’s protagonist on the radical power of art to act as a catalyst for personal change make it an exhilarating, erudite read’ – Liam Hess, Vogue.com

‘I travelled on the exquisite vessel of James Cahill’s prose, unable to disembark. The journey is sensual, treacherous and elegiac. The final landing, breathtaking’ – Maggi Hambling

‘[An] arresting debut novel . . . a masterly attention to detail and an irresistibly propulsive, almost swaggering style’ – Michael Delgado, Literary Review

‘Wow. It is magnificent. Simply magnificent . . . Tiepolo Blue really has blown me away: the gorgeous phrase-making; the sure-footed pacing; the (re-)immersion in a world I know, or knew, in a way that is both hard-edged with historical detail and almost hallucinatory’ – Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

About James Cahill 

Picture: Darren Wheeler

James Cahill was born in London. Over the past decade, he has worked in the art world and academia, combining writing and research with a role at a leading contemporary art gallery.

His writing on art has appeared in publications including The Burlington Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The London Review of Books. He was the lead author and consulting editor of FLYING TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN (Phaidon, 2018), a survey of classical myth in art from antiquity to the present day. He was the co-curator of ‘The Classical Now’, an exhibition at King’s College London (March-April 2018), examining the relationships between ancient, modern and contemporary art. He is completing his second novel THE VIOLET HOUR (Sceptre, 2024).

He is currently a Research Fellow in Classics at King’s College London.

Follow James on Twitter and Instagram 

TIEPOLO BLUE by James Cahill on Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award longlist

We are delighted that TIEPOLO BLUE by James Cahill has been longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award.

The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award was established in 1954, making it the longest-running UK prize for debut fiction and, except for the James Tait Black and the Hawthornden, the oldest literary prize in Britain. Past winners include Gail Honeyman, Jackie Kay and the late Gilbert Adair, also a Blake Friedmann client.

The other titles on this year’s longlist are: TO FILL A YELLOW HOUSE by Sussie Anie, THE DICTATOR’S WIFE by Freya Berry, MY NAME IS YIP by Paddy Crewe, EDGWARE ROAD by Yasmin Cordery-Khan, LITTLE BOXES by Cecilia Knapp, WHEN WE WERE BIRDS by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, BLACK BUTTERFLIES by Priscilla Morris, I’M A FAN by Sheena Patel, MOONLIGHT AND THE PEARLER’S DAUGHTER by Lizzie Pook, THE WHALEBONE THEATRE by Joanna Quinn and NO COUNTRY FOR GIRLS by Emma Styles.

Lucy Popescu, the chair of the judging panel, said: ‘We are delighted to announce our longlist of 12 debut novelists tackling a fascinating diversity of subjects. These compelling novels explore art and privilege, war, loss, blackmail and theft as well as love, desire, obsession and the pursuit of power. We visit several UK locations and are transported to the American frontier, Australia, Trinidad, Eastern Europe and the siege of Sarajevo.’

The shortlist for this year’s prize will be announced on 20 March, with the winner being revealed at the National Liberal Club on 24 May.

TIEPOLO BLUE follows the unravelling of revered art historian Donald Lamb. Freed from the constraints of academia, it looks like the anarchic contemporary art scene of 1990s London might be his salvation, but he soon suffers an earth-shattering fall from grace that leaves him questioning everyone and everything.

TIEPOLO BLUE was published in hardback by Sceptre in June 2022 to great acclaim. It attracted widespread praise, including from Patrick Gale and Stephen Fry (the latter describing it as ‘The best novel I have read for ages’), and was also included in the BBC’s and Times Literary Supplement’s ‘Best of 2022’ lists. It will be published in paperback on 27 April 2023.

James is currently writing his second novel, THE VIOLET HOUR, which will be published in hardback by Sceptre in Summer 2024. Set in New York, London and Switzerland, the novel reveals the secret history of a reclusive artist, a monomaniacal collector, and the art dealer caught between them.

Praise for TIEPOLO BLUE

‘The spirit of E.M. Forster is alive and well in James Cahill. The same palpating of damaged moral tissue, the same psychological canniness, the same gently invoked erudition, the same exactitude and eloquence – except Cahill is able to explore forbidden themes that Forster feared to touch on except posthumously’ – Edmund White

‘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

‘Imagine if Hollinghurst and Murdoch collaborated on a witty update of DEATH IN VENICE and you'll see the appeal of James Cahill's assured debut.’ – Patrick Gale

‘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

‘Beautifully captures disorientation, tenderness and heat without tipping into excess…an electric new novel written by an author skilled in the evocation of vertiginous, heightened emotion.’ – Michael Donkor, The Guardian, ‘Book of the Day’

‘The plot is propulsive, though the crafted ambience of unease simultaneously destabilizes the reader at every turn. The prose is fluid and precise but the tone equivocal, bathos merging into pathos, tragedy into farce and back again… Oscar Wilde’s paradoxes – about the relationship between art and life, illusion and reality, true and false selves – lie half submerged throughout this bravura debut, but so does the vulnerability of Thomas Mann’s Gustav von Aschenbach… It is the moments when rawness and confusion burst to the surface that prevent this witty yet unnerving book from being too clever.’ – Lucasta Miller, Times Literary Supplement

About James Cahill

Picture Credit: Darren Wheeler

James Cahill was born in London. Over the past decade, he has worked in the art world and academia, combining writing and research with a role at a leading contemporary art gallery.

His writing on art has appeared in publications including The Burlington Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The London Review of Books. He was the lead author and consulting editor of FLYING TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN (Phaidon, 2018), a survey of classical myth in art from antiquity to the present day. He was the co-curator of ‘The Classical Now’, an exhibition at King’s College London (March-April 2018), examining the relationships between ancient, modern and contemporary art.

He is currently a Research Fellow in Classics at King’s College London.

Follow James on Twitter and Instagram