Synopsis
Searching through a little-used cupboard at home, TV historian Glyn Peters chances upon a photograph he has never seen. Taken in high summer, many years before, it shows his wife, Kath, holding hands with another man. Glyn's mind fills with questions. Who was the man? Who took the photograph? Where was it taken? When? Worst of all: had Kath planned for him to find out all along? THE PHOTOGRAPH is a literary, psychologically complex novel of suspense that brings acclaimed author Penelope Lively's talents to a whole new level.
The New Yorker
Scrounging around in a cupboard stuffed with three decades' worth of papers and academic debris, Glyn Peters, a recently widowed landscape historian, discovers an envelope marked "Don't Open-Destroy" in his late wife's handwriting. Is there anyone on earth who would obey such an injunction? Certainly not Glyn, who opens the envelope to find a photograph of his beautiful, feckless wife hand in hand with her sister's husband. Determined to understand his wife's affair, he delves into her past with a historian's tenacity and a good deal more interest in her than he managed to muster while she was alive. This search branches out to encompass a small circle of friends, all of whom have a share in the narration. But Lively doesn't stop there, and her characters' questions about the dead woman provoke questions about themselves and the roles they played in her life.