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 Pietà