Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Picture
Review: There's something rather charming and certainly delightful about the English novel. I'm often attracted to those that take place in current times, but when I started this one I was a little put off for some reason. Not sure what it was but since I was already in bed and didn't feel like getting up and searching for something else to read, I continued and thank goodness I did. THE PHOTOGRAPH is so well done. I love a plot that wraps around itself, telling us the story through the eyes of more than one person and doing it in such a way that is both clever and artistic. Penelope Lively accomplished that easily. We never actually meet Kath in life but learn about her in death through the words of her husband, sister, niece, friends, and a somewhat insignificant lover. Perhaps no one knew Kath while she was alive. The secrets she kept from everyone made her life mysterious in a way no one recognized until after she was gone. Her sister Elaine is so wrapped up with her business of designing gardens and her husband Glyn so engrossed in his career that even if she told them, they probably wouldn't have heard her. So it's rather remarkable to watch as Kath changes the lives of these people even after she has died - and maybe for the better. A good read for those who like this type of book - people, problems, solutions, and how life goes on.
Rating:
Summary: Story. Character. Eloquence.
Review: This book has it all. Beautifully written, the story unfolds when a widower named Glyn discovers an old photo of his wife holding hands with her sister's husband. An accompanying note indicates there had been an affair. This sets a series of actions in motion and has a great affect on the lives of several people. Each chapter changes perspective and allows for outstanding character development. By the ending, I felt as if I knew each character, including Kath-the dead woman in the photograph-quite well. I heard their voices, felt their angst and appreciated their need to obsess over an altered reality, if only for a brief time. A very quick read (only 231 pages), I highly recommend. From the author of "I'm Living Your Dream Life," McKenna Publishing Group.
Rating: 
Summary: The Photograph
Review: This is a rather slow building novel. The central theme is changing perspective over a period of time seen through the viewing lens of an adulterous relationship. To complicate matters, the woman is involved with the husband of her sister. Or to put it symmetrically the other way, the man is involved with the sister of his wife. The author's use of revolving narrators is skillful, which gives the reader material to ponder.
Rating:
Summary: Near the top of her form
Review: This is quite an extraordinary gallery of interlinked portraits. There's Glyn Peters, British landscape historian and television-academic, a man who has to know, in all cases, exactly what happened and why. There's his deceased wife, Kath, a woman of unnatural beauty to whom almost everyone was attracted and who lived her own life exactly as she wanted to, never planning ahead (and never had to), never working at a steady job, and who was the despair of her much older sister, Elaine. Because Elaine is a hyper-organized and very successful garden designer, the sort of person whose life is defined by her work and who has no understanding of, nor sympathy for, people -- like her sister, Kath, like her husband, Nick -- who *don't* approach life that way. There's Polly, daughter of Elaine and Nick, a very "here and now" young woman working as a web designer who rather takes after her mother but who also doted on her radiant, fun-loving aunt. And there's Oliver, Nick's ex-partner in their failed specialty publishing firm. It was Oliver who innocently took the photo that showed Nick and his sister-in-law secretly holding hands, which he forwarded to Nick, which Nick sent on to Kath -- assuming she would destroy it. But Kath thoughtlessly tucked it away to be found by Glyn years later. And Glyn now has a new project: Assembling all the data he can ferret out on his late wife's life while he was away attending conferences and doing research. Were there other men in her life besides Nick? It doesn't matter that it all happened fifteen years ago: He must know. And the repercussions of his investigation on all involved are considerable. But it appears that no one who knew Kath *really* knew her. Lively's exquisite, highly readable style is guaranteed to keep you glued to the page and thinking about her characters and their stories while you're supposed to be doing something else.
Rating:
Summary: Great Character Development
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Unremarkable
Review: This story had great potential, but I think that Lively's storytelling, in trying to be understated, leaves much to be desired as a result. The 2 star rating is for her "painting" efforts, in that she does write very descriptively, but the overall big picture is hugely disappointing. Until the last 30 pages, I was hard-pressed to find a reason to pick it up again. The ending was, of course, the most intriguing part of the book (yet still predictable and therefore somewhat anti-climactic), but the preceding 200 pages were an absolute bore.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly good read.
Review: What a great read this book is, with it's quality prose, credible characters, dry humor, and seamless narrative, which is actually a story and not simply an exercise in stylish writing, as too many books such as this, often are. It was also good to see it all done in under two-hundred and fifty pages, instead of the more customary four-hundred page - and then some - behemoth. My main bone of contention is the author's voice being too loud: her use of third person present tense omniscient viewpoint making the multiple character scenes rather muddy in their reading This was also a problem when a character was reminiscing, the present tense viewpointing, distracting in such close proximity to past tense musings. This execution does give an up-front punch to the prose, but it would all have read more agreeably as third person past tense, keeping the viewpoint tightly associated with the character. The benefit of this can sometimes be seen in sections where Oliver, for example, keeps his mind on track for a page or two at a time.
Rating:
Summary: "She was always slipping away."
Review: While searching through some papers one day, Glyn, a widower in his 60s, discovers an old photograph buried under a stack of papers. The photograph is of Glyn's long-dead wife, Kath, holding hands with her brother-in-law, Nick. A mysterious note accompanies this candid photo, and Glyn's discovery sends him on an obsessive mission to discover the truth about Kath's relationship with Nick, and, by extension, the truth about his marriage. He struggles to cope with the fact that in their married life "nothing is what it seemed to be." Glyn's version of his past unravels, and he realises that Kath is "beyond reach. The rest of us are still flailing around trying to make sense of things." As Glyn digs around for clues about his wife's secret affair, he uncovers some uncomfortable truths about his relationship with his wife. He recalls times when he left her alone, and Kath was involved in other things--things he wasn't interested enough to even discuss. In retrospect, Glyn discovers how little he really knew his wife. He questions people from the past, and everyone has their own amazing memories of Kath. He questions those he thinks knew Kath best--there's brusque, cold, highly-successful sister, garden designer, Elaine, and her feckless husband, Nick. Glyn's questions stir some very uncomfortable memories for them all. Elaine would rather not remember how she failed to help Kath after their mother died, and Nick would rather not think about Kath at all (for obvious reasons). Apart from them all, and yet strangely still amongst them, Kath is always present--a luminous creature, vague and unreachable--who ultimately was abandoned by everyone. This beautifully written novel by Penelope Lively covers a great many issues--abandonment, adultery, relationships, loyalty, and grief. Kath has been dead for years when Glyn discovers the photo, and yet under Lively's skillful hand, memories of Kath resonant on every page. Just as Kath's family regrets her loss, the reader too experiences a tremendously strong sense of loss at the notion that Kath is gone. Lively's characters are all very well drawn. Elaine's coldness is in complete contrast to her sister's loving personality, and yet, oddly enough no one seems to be have breached either Kath's or Elaine's ultimate defenses. Nick is an exceptionally well-created character--the hapless failure of a husband who suddenly finds himself in late middle age. Elaine and Nick have been married for 32 years, and Elaine finds "behaviour that is engaging in someone of twenty-five becomes less so at 40, let alone at fifty-eight." The novel has its amusing side when Nick's daughter Polly finds herself trying to mediate between her parents.
Penelope Lively is a wonderful British writer. Her gently, perceptive novels always offer insight into human motivation. I have read almost all of her books, and I can happily say that every single one is quite marvelous--displacedhuman.
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