Night Blue

Book excerpt: Potent, haunting and lyrical, Night Blue is a debut novel like no other, a narrative largely told in the voice of the painting Blue Poles. It is a truly original and absorbing approach to revisiting Jackson Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner as artists and people, as well as a realigning our ideas around the cultural legacy of Whitlam's purchase of Blue Poles in 1973. It is also the story of Alyssa, and a contemporary relationship, in which Angela O'Keeffe immerses us in the essential power of art to change our personal lives and, by turns, a nation. Moving between New York and Australia with fluid ease, Night Blue is intimate and tender, yet surprisingly dramatic. It is a glorious exploration of how art must never be undervalued. 'Intimate, sublime, this work shines.'Favel Parrett, author of Past the Shallows and There Was Still Love 'Intelligent and poignant, Night Blue traverses the boundaries between language and art in a delicious tour de force. I found it impossible to put down.' Mette Jakobsen, author of What the Light Hides and The Vanishing Act 'Miraculous ? O'Keeffe gets under the skin of a painting we all thought we knew, giving it agency and voice, releasing a spirit that is by turns dreamlike, tender and ruthlessly true.'Michael Fitzgerald, author of The Pacific Room and Pieta