Critics have compared him to Henry James (Lucasta Miller, The Guardian), T. S. Eliot (Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, author of Becoming Dickens), E.M. Forster (Edmund White), and F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Daily Mail). Yet James Cahill is an author firmly anchored in the 21st-century world of complicated sexual dynamics, power plays, artifice, and art.
In his highly anticipated second novel, The Violet Hour (Pegasus Books; March 3, 2026), James Cahill unravels an intricate story about love, loss, lies, money, and art. At its center is Thomas Haller, a celebrated abstract painter, the heir to Rothko, whose luminous and increasingly turbulent works inspire reverence from some, provoke eye-rolling disdain from others, and spur bidding wars starting with figures in the multi millions. As we gradually learn, Thomas is not the genius many believe him to be—and he’s hiding more than his questionable creative process.
After a six-year vanishing act, Haller is returning with an exhibition of paintings in a color unlike any his avid collectors have ever seen—a soft purple, pulsing and incandescent, with a touch of silver. The show comes as a surprise to not only those obsessed with his work—including ultra-rich New York real estate mogul Leo Goffman—but also to Lorna Bedford, the gallery owner who has represented Thomas for decades, starting with his luminous Pink Paintings. Instead, Haller is making his comeback in London, at the newest gallery owned by a ruthless global dealer, Claude Berlins. At Goffman’s urging—and for personal reasons—Lorna decides to fly out for the opening. Beyond their long-term business relationship, Thomas is one of Lorna’s oldest and dearest friends, despite their complex, painful history.The excitement for Haller’s new exhibit is shadowed by a tragedy. The night before the show, one of Galerie Claude Berlin's associate directors, a young man named Luca Holden, fell to his death from his apartment window. What seems on the surface like an unfortunate accident—or perhaps, suicide—opens up a chapter in Lorna’s past that she has tried to forget. And Lorna is far from the only one in the art world affected by this shattering event.
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