The Photograph

I enjoyed Lively's recent CONSEQUENCES so much that I turned to this slightly earlier novel. It is equally absorbing, but I think the greater achievement. While dealing with similar concerns -- families, the power of memory -- it is more concentrated, darker in tone but richer in its observation of human nature, and ultimately the more satisfying book. Had Lively not already won the Booker Prize with MOON TIGER, it would be easy to see this novel as a strong contender. The premise is simple. Glyn Peters, a sixtyish British archaeologist, comes upon a group photograph that includes his late wife, Kath. Details in the photo, and a brief note that he finds with it, suggest that there are aspects of Kath's married life that he didn't know. So, researcher that he is, he makes some enquiries. Consequences ripple outwards from there, affecting a tight group of people who had been connected with Kath. These include: Elaine, her older sister, a successful garden designer; Elaine's husband, Nick, a former publisher, now full of plans that seldom come to fruition; Oliver, Nick's former business partner, now running a desk-top publishing business of his own; and Nick and Elaine's daughter Polly, who had been very close to Kath growing up and is now a web designer. All of them remember Kath as a force of nature, stunningly beautiful, a magnetic presence in any room. Although there is little present-day action in the novel, Kath is very much alive in the memories of those who were close to her. Her incandescence comes through from the very beginning, but as we move through the heart of the novel into its poignant conclusion, we begin to glimpse the real woman behind the brilliant glow, and each of the characters finds something different in the Kath whom they thought they knew. Consider again the various professions: archaeologist, landscape architect, publisher, web designer. As always with Lively, it seems, these are typical concerns for people of this class at this time. But there is more; they are all about manipulating and arranging given data to make a certain pleasing sense. Glyn's speciality is the history of landscape, reconstructing a lost way of life from the line of a hedge or the shape of a field; he is used to the way new discoveries can change old perceptions, and he approaches the study of his late wife in the same way. As a garden designer, Elaine also works with the natural features of a landscape, but builds on them, forming them into a new pattern to fulfill an aesthetic concept; this turns out to have been an acute analogy to her relationship with her younger sister. The other characters, as publishers or designers, are concerned with putting out words or pictures that will attract the eye, make apparent sense, and sell to the public. Lively seems to suggest that we treat our memories in much this way; by trying to wrestle them into patterns, putting them between glossy covers as it were, we may distort the natural shapes that point to m

This is the story of Kath, told by those who knew her, or didn't, as it turned out in some cases. Kath is vibrant, beautiful, and fun. Everyone loves being around her, it seems. Kath is revealed slowly as the book progresses. The revelation begins when her husband finds a photograph that was supposed to be destroyed. It shakes his world so completely that he in turn shakes the world of others who were living benignly unaware.I noticed, as I was reading, that in the beginning I did not care about the characters. The author slowly built and developed the characters of Kath, her husband, Glyn, her sister, Elaine, and her brother-in-law, Nick. Each of them became more than I first thought. I wished that they could go back and see Kath for who she really was or wanted to be. This was a great book. I highly recommend it.

Penelope Lively is one of that rare breed of writers who never disappoints. Her latest, "The Photograph", is an intriguing little novel about the elusive nature of identity in life and its amorphous quality when resurrected from the collective memory of family and friends in death. We know nothing directly of the dead Kath except from the impressions of Glyn, Elaine, Nick, Polly and others. Despite its intensely intimate quality, the story pans out as a mystery or a near whodunit with the promise of a tell-all at the end, and that unfortunately may be its weakest aspect because "the truth about Kath" as revealed by her friend Mary Packard in the last chapter is strangely predictable and less than earth shattering. Everyone seems to be in agreement that Kath is this artless beauty whose free spirited soul sets her apart from the rest who must deal with the ordinary mundane matters of life and career, so when the real Kath finally emerges, it turns out she isn't what we expect. Loneliness and the lack of genuine warmth and intimacy finally claims her life too. In their separate attempts to get to the bottom of circumstances surrounding the incriminating photograph, each of the others reveal more of their own ugly nature than of the ghostly Kath, eg Glyn's selfish conceit, Elaine's cold-bloodedness, Nick's weakness, Polly's lack of filial feelings, etc. Is it any wonder that we never caught the real likeness of Kath from the secret ruminations of the others. "The Photograph" is a beautifully written novel and an immensely enjoyable read. Don't miss it.

"The Photograph" is a brilliant puzzle of deftly created characters. Ms. Lively takes a simple premise of a discovered photograph and then proceeds to carve it apart into the individual people who are depicted plus the husband who finds it and learns of his wife's affair with her sister's husband. The great success of this book is the crisp and clear representation of each person, their thoughts, and their relationships to the others. Though this is a modestly sized book, it is resplendant with large meanings. Beautifully written and wise.

The book begins simply. A husband searching through his old papers comes across a photograph of his wife holding hands with her brother-in-law and understands they must have been lovers. Through each chapter, as he angrily interviews friends and relatives for details of the love affair, a question begins to softly arise. Beneath the accusations, the denials and the love of those he questions, something begins to whisper not so much "What's the truth about what Kath did?" but "Who really was Kath?" Kath who died young, who was such a free spirit, not pulled down by life. But in the end what Kath did or did not do is secondary; it is the truth of who she was, and that all these people talking and fussing and denying and befriending, did not know her.I have looked about me many times since reading "The Photograph" at people I know well, and wonder what they allow me to see. In the end of this remarkable novel, all the busy characters seem to fall away and the spirit of the illusive Kath remains alone gazing at the reader. We wonder how we can assume we know someone so well, and never perhaps even after many years know them at all.