The Photographer's Wife

Lyrically written yet brutal in its honesty and sparse but graphic detail, The Photographer’s Wife follows Prue Ashton from her lonely childhood in Jerusalem 1920 to England 1942. Hers is a sad and ephemeral tale as she flits from place to place, person to person never quite fitting in never quite a part of the world she inhabits. 

Behind the seemingly frivolous world of the Jerusalem of her childhood lurks a dark and dangerous place where no one is as they seem. Subterfuge, betrayal and deception are rife. Prue is desperate to have someone who cares for her and tries her best to be helpful and impress but with awful consequences. 

The story moves back and forth in time, gradually revealing the true natures of the characters and the sadness and confusion of Prue’s life. She is befriended by Ishan who teaches her codes and makes her feel wanted unlike her father who is always abandoning her, though his motives are opaque. Her mother, a shadowy figure is back in England in somewhat mysterious circumstances and Eleanor who has befriended Prue suddenly drops her when William Harrington arrives. Harrington like the others has his own secrets and crosses to bear and he will re-appear in Prue’s life during the war. 

This is a rich, engaging narrative; deeply disturbing at times but compelling. I found I couldn’t put it down.

I enjoyed the author’s first book, 'A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar'.. This one is better – brilliant even - but very hard to review. I made a list of things the book might be about:
Parent/child relationships  Love  Heredity?
Art  Politics in Jerusalem before the Second World War  Betrayal  Why title?

The main character is Prue Miller, nee Ashton. She’s a sculptor who has escaped the London art world and a terrible marriage to live with her young son Skip in a tumbledown shack in ‘Bungalow Town’, almost on the beach at Shoreham, Sussex. Confusingly, Prue is *not* The Photographer’s Wife. That’s Eleanora, an Englishwoman who shockingly married a foreigner, the famous photographer Khaled Rasul. When Prue was a child, she spent six months living in Jerusalem, where Eleanora was almost the only person to take any notice of her. The narrative moves between Jerusalem in 1920 and Shoreham in 1937.

Prue had a lonely childhood. Her father was always abroad, her mother ill. When her mother is committed to some sort of institution her father sends for her to join him in Jerusalem. The city is a chaotic mix of ancient buildings, people of all races and creeds; also a hotbed of political intrigue, much of it against the British. Astonishingly, Prue’s father allows her to wander the city alone; at one point in the book I was speed reading, in terror of what might become of her. Her friends are all adults. Isfahn teaches her Arabic but also secret codes. An adept pupil, she obtains information for him about British plans. Eleanora, who has taken up photography herself since her marriage to Rasul, seems genuinely fond of her. Then William ‘Willie’ Harrington arrives on the scene. He’s a former pilot, horribly scarred by a horrific flying accident. He’s in love with Eleanora, can’t accept her marriage and wants to take her away. Prue feels she’s lost her friend. Then something happens which means she’s sent back to England.

The intervening years are only sketched in. Prue attends the Slade and becomes an admired part of the new movement in art. She marries the dreadful, controlling Piers and has a son she doesn’t want. Her behaviour at this time is distinctly odd; for instance, her compulsion to take off all her clothes in public. When she runs away to Shoreham history seems to be repeating itself as she allows Skip to run wild. Then Harrington turns up, now involved with the Secret Service. Prue’s relationship with Isfahn and the events in Jerusalem all those years ago have become issues of interest to the British government. No spoilers, but at the end of the book (by which time war has broken out) you are still wondering what will become of Prue and her son. And caring.

A strangely haunting story about a woman who is unusual, to say the least. I liked it very much. I read it courtesy of NetGalley.