After his wife Kath’s death, Glyn is going through all her paperwork and finds a folder with ‘DO NOT OPEN: DESTROY’ on it. Of course he opens it, only to find a picture of his wife holding hands with another man. Glyn then sets out to find out about the details of his wife’s life that he never knew about, and he finds out that he really didn’t know his wife all that well. As he finds out more and more, he needs to enlist Kath’s friends and her sister Elaine to fill in the gaps to the mystery, ‘Who was Kath, really?’
This book is about marriage, friendships, and family relationships. Who takes precedence over whom and why. Who really knows the true soul of a person and why. How does one even go about trying to find out the true self of a loved one? This book really engaged me because of the intertwined, complex relationships of all the characters and how they related to the ‘mystery’ of who Kath really was. Recommended.
231 pp., 2003
Rating: 
Nice review. This one sounds intriguing. I think I will put it on my wishlist.
I’m with Amy … nice review and I’ll be putting it on my wishlist. The topic caught my attention since my husband (of 27 years) recently told someone what I thought about something and he got it all wrong! Sometimes we don’t know each other in many ways, but we think we do.
Oh how I love this book. I need to dig it out of the stacks.
This sounds interesting, especially because the sci fi book I just finished reading, Speaker for the Dead, also had a lot to do with how little we may know those closest to us.
Very nice review. I’ve had this book in my TBR pile for ages, but I think I might have to move it to the top of the stack. I love Penelope Lively’s work.
Nice review. I’ve had this in my TBR pile for ages too. Seems like I should dig it out.
I’ve had this on my TBR list, but it never called me loud enough to pick it up. Your thoughts make me, once again, a bit curious.
[...] The Photograph by Penelope Lively (2003, 231 pp.) [...]
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