I’ve been having a holiday from work over the Christmas period and enjoying having the time to read books of choice – books I’ve bought rather than ones I’m paid to edit. One of them is The Two Roberts by Damian Barr. I’d read a good review of it and was particularly attracted by the art connection: the book is about two artists who lived in the first half of the 20th century. The novel is based on the true lives of the artists Robert (Bobby) MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun and gives an insight not only into the art world of the time – many artists appear: Lucien Freud; Francis Bacon; John Milton (who illustrated Elizabeth David’s A Book of Mediterranean Food) – but the dangers of being gay at that time. With its beautiful, lyrical writing, it is also an ode to love: to love at first sight when Bobby first catches sight of Robert on a train; the enduring love that weathers the kind of wild life many artists lived at the time; separation during World War Two; artistic jealousy because Robert’s work is constantly judged better than Bobby’s. But above all, the love that survives the challenges and dangers of being gay at a time when it was illegal; a love that sees them rejected by their families and constantly in fear of discovery.

From early on their teacher at the prestigious Glasgow School of Art – from which they graduate as top students of their year – sees the two produce better work when they work together and for their whole lives they will be seen as a unit. But there’s pressure in this too, their professional and personal lives so intimately and strongly entwined: they cannot live without each other but they cannot always live in peace with each other and their fights and arguments become famous amongst those who know them.

I was immediately drawn in by the poetic writing: the opening when the two lovers are ‘curled like commas’; their tutor when they first meet him rubbing ‘his hands over an invisible fire’, which so vividly creates the image of how he looked. From their home towns in Scotland, the story follows them to London, Paris and Rome. They are celebrated as great artists but the cost is devastatingly high.

When the author Damian Barr came across the two Roberts’ story, he wanted to give them the recognition he felt they deserved, and in doing so has written a compelling, rich and absorbing novel. Apart from the story of the two men, the book provides a vivid social insight to the times, from the poor homes of small town Scotland to the hedonistic lives led in London’s Soho.