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Fugitive Blue
The prize-winning debut novel from the author of The Performance .
I am not writing this to be sentimental. I am just trying to find an answer to a story...
An artistic girl in Renaissance Venice, quietly rebelling against the constraints of her gender.
A young milordi on a European Grand Tour, recognising the world and his secret sexuality.
A ballerina in nineteenth-century Paris, choosing between suitors.
A Greek mother, beginning a new life with her family in a migrant reception centre in regional Australia.
And, finally, a paintings conservator in contemporary Melbourne, breaking her own heart.
A single, small artwork - subversive, hidden, and oddly blue - somehow survives for five hundred years, linking the lives of these characters.
An intricate tale of grief and discovery, of watery destruction and earthly love.
I am not writing this to be sentimental. I am just trying to find an answer to a story...
An artistic girl in Renaissance Venice, quietly rebelling against the constraints of her gender.
A young milordi on a European Grand Tour, recognising the world and his secret sexuality.
A ballerina in nineteenth-century Paris, choosing between suitors.
A Greek mother, beginning a new life with her family in a migrant reception centre in regional Australia.
And, finally, a paintings conservator in contemporary Melbourne, breaking her own heart.
A single, small artwork - subversive, hidden, and oddly blue - somehow survives for five hundred years, linking the lives of these characters.
An intricate tale of grief and discovery, of watery destruction and earthly love.
240 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2008
5 people are currently reading
148 people want to read
About the author
Claire Thomas
43 books34 followersClaire Thomas is an Australian writer. She has published short stories in various journals, including Meanjin, Island, Overland and Australian Short Stories. She has an Honours degree in English and Art History from the University of Melbourne where she is currently undertaking a PhD. Fugitive Blue is her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 2, 2022
I loved this author’s recent novel, The Performance, so it’s very interesting to read her first book. This one traces a particular painting of two angels. It extends over 400 years, through varying circumstances of ownership. It’s set mostly in Europe, with Australia linked in. A small physical aspect of the painting, it’s support structure, actually mirrors the telling of the story. The author shows her skill with the changing narratives, it’s only when I finished that I saw how she skilfully brings the overarching story to a complete and satisfying finish. Beautifully written, we get more depth of detailed description with every change of setting.
June 18, 2023
oh my God this was one of the best books I've read in a long time, I can't believe it's not more popular. The writing was incredible and geez that ending GOT ME
July 31, 2023
took me a bit to get into but then i really really liked it. chapter 4 is beautiful, the ending ruined me. i need this made into a film sooo bad just so i can revisit the story again and again
November 1, 2020
Fugitive Blue covers the same sort of territory as People of the Book. It traces the antecedents of a European painting under restoration while at the same time it dissects the ending of a relationship. There’s nothing distinctively Australian about it: it could just as well have been set in Norway or Montreal. Ok, the narrator/restorer used to live in Melbourne, the painting is restored in a studio in Melbourne, and the relationship while it flourished was in Melbourne, but there’s not so much as a tram to convey the place as a distinctive city, only a filthy flat. The rest of the action is mostly overseas as the provenance of the painting is imagined. Compared to the paucity of setting in Melbourne, Venice in 1478 and 1776 is most wonderfully realised, with superb descriptions of the canals and waterways, the buildings, the glorious artworks and Carnevale.
The lyricism for Paris 1877 and Kythera in the 1950s is not quite as lush but again it is in marked contrast to the bare realisation of the scenes at the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre. There’s very little to distinguish it from a migrant reception centre anywhere else in the world, but what little there is shows this writer’s potential.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2009/04/17/f...
Horace wakes up with a strange feeling already rushing through him. The sounds of the splashing street echo up into his lodgings and he wonders if perhaps he has heard something dreadful in his sleep: a fight in foreign voices beneath his window, a screaming fall.
Maybe it is simply the water. He cannot understand how such an old, illustrious city can be so alarmingly wet. The very notion of it, lapping away at everything, perplexes him.
Travellers have said that Venice appears to float on the Adriatic, a shimmering fairytale city rising through the clouds. But Horace believes this idea is nonsense: the buildings do just the opposite; they cling to the small section of terrain at their foundations with a crumbling, desperate defiance. They are not floating at all, but rather embedded into the earth in a way he has never seen in any other city. (p69)
The lyricism for Paris 1877 and Kythera in the 1950s is not quite as lush but again it is in marked contrast to the bare realisation of the scenes at the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre. There’s very little to distinguish it from a migrant reception centre anywhere else in the world, but what little there is shows this writer’s potential.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2009/04/17/f...
July 17, 2022
I read Thomas’s recent novel The Performance earlier in the year and was keen to read this, her debut. It’s been a long time between novels for her (13 years) - I wonder why.
Fugitive Blue is a more conventional novel than The Performance and less hard hitting. It made for interesting and pleasant reading. Towards the end Thomas introduced some clever developments in plot and character so the pace and interest really picked up.
The narrator (unnamed until the end) is an art conservator in Melbourne who is brought a painting of two cherubs on an ultramarine background. She believes it to come from the Renaissance period. And so we follow the story of this painting, from its creation and its later acquisition by an English lord who gifts it to his friend. Through this gift the painting comes to Paris and into the possession of a ballerina who makes a choice in love that takes her to a new country. The painting eventually arrives in Australia with a Greek immigrant family.
Each episode of the painting’s history is placed between chapters about the narrator’s own life. The novel is written in the second person, addressed to her former lover. Just as she painstakingly restores the painting, she also peels away layers of her own life and we learn more about her relationship with Mark and how it ended.
A secondary theme is one of water and flooding. The watery world of Venice is somehow reflected in a room in the narrator’s house where her possessions have inexplicably become waterlogged. At the end there is dramatic extension of this theme of water and its power. The blue referenced in the title is lapis lazuli, highly prized in Renaissance Venice, where the story of the painting begins.
And of course the colour ultramarine (the deep blue of the ocean) was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. So there is more to this novel than meets the eye. A good debut and well worth reading. But not quite four stars for me.
Fugitive Blue is a more conventional novel than The Performance and less hard hitting. It made for interesting and pleasant reading. Towards the end Thomas introduced some clever developments in plot and character so the pace and interest really picked up.
The narrator (unnamed until the end) is an art conservator in Melbourne who is brought a painting of two cherubs on an ultramarine background. She believes it to come from the Renaissance period. And so we follow the story of this painting, from its creation and its later acquisition by an English lord who gifts it to his friend. Through this gift the painting comes to Paris and into the possession of a ballerina who makes a choice in love that takes her to a new country. The painting eventually arrives in Australia with a Greek immigrant family.
Each episode of the painting’s history is placed between chapters about the narrator’s own life. The novel is written in the second person, addressed to her former lover. Just as she painstakingly restores the painting, she also peels away layers of her own life and we learn more about her relationship with Mark and how it ended.
A secondary theme is one of water and flooding. The watery world of Venice is somehow reflected in a room in the narrator’s house where her possessions have inexplicably become waterlogged. At the end there is dramatic extension of this theme of water and its power. The blue referenced in the title is lapis lazuli, highly prized in Renaissance Venice, where the story of the painting begins.
And of course the colour ultramarine (the deep blue of the ocean) was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. So there is more to this novel than meets the eye. A good debut and well worth reading. But not quite four stars for me.
December 3, 2025
Knocked it over in a few days.
Fugitive Blue takes a blue painting, and through various vignettes, connects its story across ages and people. Parallels in relationships are drawn, every aspect of the colour blue is examined and admired, and a story comes to life through the lives of many. A terrific read. Would definitely recommend.
I now look forward to reading The Performance.
Fugitive Blue takes a blue painting, and through various vignettes, connects its story across ages and people. Parallels in relationships are drawn, every aspect of the colour blue is examined and admired, and a story comes to life through the lives of many. A terrific read. Would definitely recommend.
I now look forward to reading The Performance.
April 25, 2023
A damaged work of art is at the centre of this story which shifts through time and place from Renaissance Italy, 19th century Paris, Greece to modern day Australia. As a conservator carefully removes the dirt and damage of centuries we learn of the artist and the owners of the painting and how it reached its home in Australia. Beautifully written and moving, it reminded me of People of the Book, but on a smaller scale.
October 21, 2020
Loved this book! Delightful characters and intriguing story line. I really enjoyed the information about early times in Venice and details about early artists and their work.
February 21, 2022
An excellent novel by an Australian author of which I stumbled across in the ‘new in’ section of my local library. So glad I did.
July 31, 2022
Women loving men
September 4, 2022
I read the first two chapter and found it depressing. That is why I put it asise, a very rare thing for me to do.
December 3, 2024
very good, 3.5 rounded up :)
July 3, 2013
I ended up reading this book as a strange coincidence. A Facebook/Twitter friend in Australia thought she saw me at an Australian author fair, and she actually had seen the author of this book. So, my Australian Facebook/Twitter friend sent me a copy so I could read it for myself.
I LOVED this book! The chapters alternate between an art conservator and the history of the artist and different owners of the painting she is restoring. This is a beautiful novel, and Claire Thomas (who looks a little bit like me, apparently), really did a beautiful job in researching art conservation, Renaissance painting techniques, and the various time periods she writes about.
I LOVED this book! The chapters alternate between an art conservator and the history of the artist and different owners of the painting she is restoring. This is a beautiful novel, and Claire Thomas (who looks a little bit like me, apparently), really did a beautiful job in researching art conservation, Renaissance painting techniques, and the various time periods she writes about.
September 25, 2014
A novel that traces the imaginary provenance of a painting that has come into the hands of an art conservator whose relationship is failing. I'm afraid the main narrator left me a bit cold - mainly because I'd never seen partner and her be anything but toolish to each other, which left them both unsympathetic. And the tale of the original painter (illicit love in the fresco painter's workshop) felt like the same old story that everyone writes about Renaissance Italy. I was, however, charmed by the rest of the stories, and this saved the whole thing for me.
August 11, 2012
I'm not sure how to describe this novel; the different stories about the provenance of the painting were gently told which made it an easy read. It's not the sort of story that you can't put down; rather, its a wistful little exploration of human relationships.
August 10, 2016
An enjoyable read that wanders through the time and ownership of an old painting. An easy read , plenty of history and interesting and varied lives lead. If anything I would have liked it more detailed and found out more about these characters, not often I would like a book longer!
March 1, 2009
Reminiscent of People of the Book but with a less interesting art item and stories that corresponds to its history of possession.
August 9, 2012
Loved it's candid regret.
August 18, 2012
A good story, enjoyable easy read but not all that satisfying. A light meal rather than a solid one.
April 17, 2014
Most enjoyable. Would consider giving it 4.5 stars if I could.
March 13, 2015
an easy read and an interesting speculation on how objects get passed on....
January 4, 2022
2.5 / 5
November 27, 2023
Cute read, not very captivating and not enough happening for the amount of words used.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews