Victoria defines herself by her art. Painting isn't a job – it's an absolute need and the reason for her existence. But how is she to bridge the gap between her ambitions and her yearning for human relationships ... and love?
José gives her the intensity she craves but has no interest in her as an artist. Simon is mature and loving but his gentleness and inability to understand her desires drives her to distraction. John understands exactly who she is, but unnerves her with his piercing perceptiveness and violent nature (she knows who gave her friend Emma the bruises she carries on her face).
And throughout the snaking tangle of burning emotions to decide, she paints: tying down memories in cadmium yellow, burning canvases that reveal too much, whilst trying desperately to pay the bills.
The story is set in London and the North East of England and written by a Londoner who now lives in the North East. Author Catherine Edmunds has haunted the London galleries and seen the works that moved Victoria to tears; she's shivered on the beach at Alnmouth as the bitter haar mist rolls in from the grey North Sea; she's been overwhelmed by Durham Cathedral; she's sat by the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park. And she's ached to sketch what she felt.
As an artist herself – creating both the cover art and an inside self-portrait for 'Serpentine' – Catherine probes the profound questions faced by Victoria. Why do contemporary artists do what they do? Why are they so seemingly hell-bent on self-destruction? And what does all that stuff in Tate Modern art gallery really mean?
