The Photograph - by Penelope Lively (Paperback)

About the Book

With Lively's signature mastery of narrative and psychology, "The Photograph" explores a woman's beauty and its threat to her own happiness, the rivalry of sisters, a marriage in supreme crisis, and the cost of professional success as life unfolds.

Book Synopsis

"One of Britain's most talented and experienced writers. The closer you look the more mystery you see." --The Times (London)

A seductive and hugely suspenseful novel by Booker Prize winning author Penelope Lively, about what can happen when you look too closely into the past

Searching through a little-used cupboard at home, Glyn Peters chances upon a photograph he has never seen before. Taken in high summer, many years earlier, it shows his wife, Kath, holding hands with another man.

Glyn's work as a historian should have prepared him for unexpected findings and reversals, but he is ill-prepared for this radical shift in perception. His mind fills with questions. Who was the man? Who took the photograph? Where was it taken? When? Had Kath planned for him to find out all along?

As Glyn begins to search for answers, he, and those around him, find the certainties of the past and present slip away, and the picture of the beautiful woman they all thought they knew distort.

Propelled by the author's signature mastery of narrative and psychology, The Photograph is Lively at her very best.

Review Quotes

"One of Lively's most satisfying novels: cleverly conceived, artfully constructed and executed with high intelligence and sensitivity." --Los Angeles Times "An ingenious premise for a novel and Penelope Lively... spins it out with expert skill." --The Washington Post
"Engrossing... engaging." --San Francisco Chronicle
"Lively's [novel] maintains the high standard her fans have come to expect. It's another shining winner." --The Boston Globe
"Original... bracingly intelligent. Rarely has a subject as elusive as life's messiness been pursued with such unflagging rigor." --The Atlantic Monthly
"In her delicate, spot-on prose, Penelope Lively ruthlessly takes her microscope below the surface of two middle-class marriages and magnifies whatever it is that is left behind when passion is gone, when couples become immune to one another." --The Times (London)
"To read Penelope Lively's book is like slipping into the finest cashmere: beautifully wonven, fluid and expensive. Once experienced, it is impossible to enjoy inferior materials." --The Evening Standard (London)
"The Photograph is Penelope Lively's 14th novel, but she shows no sign of running out of inventiveness or of failing to write books that are hugely pleasurable to read. This one is deftly edged with humour." --Independent on Sunday (UK)

'One of Britain's most talented and experienced writers. The closer you look the more mystery you see' --The Times (London)

About the Author

Penelope Lively grew up in Egypt but settled in England after the war and took a degree in history at St Anne's College, Oxford. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a member of PEN and the Society of Authors. She was married to the late Professor Jack Lively, has a daughter, a son and four grandchildren, and lives in Oxfordshire and London.

Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short story collections for both adults and children. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize; once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. Her novels include Passing On, shortlisted for the 1989 Sunday Express Book of the Year Award, City of the Mind, Cleopatra's Sister and Heat Wave.

Penelope Lively has also written radio and television scripts and has acted as presenter for a BBC Radio 4 program on children's literature. She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award.