A group of avant-garde artists cruise to the top of the 90s London art scene, buoyed by sexual charisma, self-belief and free champagne
After Kate Endish is accepted into the prestigious Grove School of Art, she finds a spot in Headless Yard, a ramshackle warehouse in Hackney, joining a ragtag group of artists making a name for themselves and changing the world, one bricolage at a time.
Terrible reviews of their first exhibition propel them to stratospheric success. Soon they are sent on an all-expenses-paid trip to Venice by the British Council, but a major prize threatens to set them against one another, and a cultural kickback begins.
The group must struggle to survive market forces, the passions of love, and artistic integrity – not to mention their foul-mouthed parrot, the junkies downstairs, the asbestos lining the walls and their jaded art dealer. Secretly, Kate reckons the most talented of them all is Lubbock – still into figurative painting and stubbornly immune to the lure of money and fame.
As the 90s progress in a haze of art and drugs, Kate wonders: are any of them actually true artists, and will any of their work last? And failing that, was all the cash and glory worth it in the end?
This is a riotously funny and deeply moving novel about living for art, the cost of fame, and the meaning of friendship, which will delight readers of Miranda July, Rachel Kushner and Luke Kennard.
