Marc and James will take a deep dive into all four books, reflecting on the 1990s from both personal and cultural perspectives. Their conversation will span artistic icons and incidental experiences, retracing the myths and the realities of a fast-receding era: indie queer boys, coming-of-age in south New Jersey, an androgynous boy with a gun in a basement flat off Portland Place, and Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss backstage at London Fashion Week, De La Soul at Wembley Arena, Blink-182 in Soho, and more in the new publication.
James Cahill is a writer and art historian. He is the author of two novels, The Violet Hour (2025), psychodrama set in the international world of contemporary art, and Tiepolo Blue (2022), which was shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award and selected for H.M. the Queen’s Reading Room. He contributes to publications including Artforum, the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement and the Spectator. His latest book, The Beverly Hills Housewife, a ranging study of David Hockney and his earliest Californian muse, will be published in September by Thames & Hudson.
Marc Vallée is a documentary photographer based in London. His work focuses primarily on subcultures – queer youth, sex workers, political dissidents and graffiti writers, as well as skaters, punks and surfers. As a gay teenager in the 1980s, he read Marx and discovered Soho, experiences that made a formative impact. His self-published zines and photobooks are held in the collections of Tate Britain, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), London Museum, Martin Parr Foundation and Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP). Marc’s prints are held in public and private collections including the London Museum and Martin Parr Foundation.
Photo: Viscount Daniel Macmillan (great-grandson of former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan), Jade Jagger (daughter of Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger and human rights advocate Bianca Jagger) and Kate Moss backstage at London Fashion Week, London, 1999. © Marc Vallée, 1999. All Rights Reserved.