Van Gogh's Ear: The True Story - Hardcover

BERNADETTE MURPHY was born and brought up in the UK. She has lived in the south of France for most of her adult life and worked in many different fields. A series of chance events led her to start investigating the life of Van Gogh in Arles, but little did she know what an exciting adventure it would turn out to be.  Van Gogh’s Ear is her first book.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“[Van Gogh] has been sleuthed with determination and delicacy . . . and the result is an insightful and sympathetic portrait of a troubled artist. . . . Murphy wondered what she could possibly bring to the case that had been raked over by so many experts and historians (quite a bit, as it transpired), but she did feel she had one advantage. Her decades in France had given her an insight into the Provençal mindset. . . . Murphy weaves effortlessly between reconstructing Van Gogh’s life in Arles and her own adventures with dusty archives, absent-minded bureaucrats, serendipitous coincidences and labyrinthine dead ends. In the process she lays to rest some long-held assumptions. . . . She is determined to pursue the story to the end and recounts in poignant detail Van Gogh’s descent into irreversible instability.” —The Australian

“Murphy’s revelations are fascinating and add intriguing details to the great crisis of Van Gogh’s life.” —The Times

“Fresh perspective.” —CBC

“No one before has built up such a detailed picture of the people around [Van Gogh] during his unhappy but artistically fertile sojourn in Arles.” —The Telegraph 

“This book has the pace of a detective novel, sending fresh blood pulsing through an old tale as Murphy recreates the heartbreaking drama of Van Gogh’s loosening grip on reality. . . . Murphy’s book rescues the real Van Gogh from the lazy clichés of tea towel memorabilia by painting an electric, nuanced portrait of a man who achieved artistic brilliance despite his mental health issues and not because of them. In doing so, she allows for a version of his history in which her subject’s passion for life, art and humanity blooms like the sunflowers he painted.” —The Daily Mail 

“Murphy’s researches led her . . . to revelations which must surely revise the study of Van Gogh. . . . What emerges in the course of these revelations is renewed respect for Van Gogh.” —The National (Scotland)