The Photograph

Three people believed they 'knew' Kath: her husband Glyn, a successful landscape historian, her older sister Elaine, a garden designer, and Elaine's lackadaisical husband Nick. But all three had very different experiences of the same woman. Kath has been dead for some years when one day Glyn, rummaging through some old papers, comes across an envelope with a direction in Kath's handwriting: 'Don't open. Destroy.' Of course, Glyn opens it - and finds a photograph of Kath holding hands with Nick. As he looks back, trying to make sense of the past, he sees how detached his marriage was, superficially comfortable but full of lacunae. He'd been, he now realizes, remarkably incurious about what Kath did during his absences: she always seemed happy enough.... To Elaine and Nick too Kath was what they saw and accepted, but now the ground under their feet has shifted and they must reassess not just Kath but themselves and their connections with each other. Penelope Lively's elegant use of the English language is a joy, and her characters, who on the surface appear 'ordinary', have depths, privacies and eccentricities that make them unique, and sometimes puzzle those nearest to them - or, more dangerously, are simply accepted and ignored. The story does not end when the reader finishes reading it. It stays in the mind, the characters still developing and changing. And it raises the question - how well do we ourselves know those closest to us? A serious analysis of life, people and experience? Yes, but there are many lighter moments: Penelope Lively has a delicious, sometimes sly, sense of humour. Elaine's professional visits to Open Gardens to judge competitions, and her private thoughts on the subject behind a po-faced exterior, are hilarious, and minor characters are sketched briefly but brilliantly. A short novel, packed with more ideas than many twice its length. (Kirkus UK)