Picture Palace

by Paul Theroux

World-famous photographer Maude Coffin Pratt has pointed her lens at the beautiful, obscure, and obscene, and at the private places and public parts of the famous, from Gertrude Stein to Graham Greene. When the seventy-year-old Maude rummages through her archives in preparation for a triumphant retrospective, the resurrected images unleash a flood of suppressed memories--of her extraordinary life, her celebrated subjects, and the dark, painful secret at the core of her existence.

Theroux's "superbly crafted, elegantly controlled novel" (Washington Post Book Review)

"Vibrant and compelling...Paul Theroux at his satirical best." --Anne Tyler, The New York Times Book Review

"Profound and effective, not to mention entertaining.. . . For all the peculiar brilliance of its surface, Picture Palace is a novel whose depths you can drown in.. . . Absolutely brilliant." --Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

"Dazzling. . . audacious. . . altogether captivating." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, 20th Century, Photography, Art, Novels, Contemporary

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best known as a travelogue writer, Theroux has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast.

He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.

Reviews

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This elegant novel may be Theroux's best novel and even his best book. It is my favorite of his novels--untypical, risk-taking, deeply felt, written with passion and humor, as well as with his familiar ability to make his world vivid and dramatic. This story of a pioneering woman photographer in the first half of the 20th century covers a lot of ground: historically, geographically, and emotionally. The most courageous part of the novel was Theroux's decision to let this woman tell her own story, revealing her cantankerous, obsessive, hungry, often selfish, but at the same time generous, personality. It's quite a book and quite a read.

[Vancolondon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting idea, some great writing in places… that’s the positive!

[Lesley Potts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somebody else bought this book and left it behind, languishing on my to-be-read shelf for years. I‘m pretty sure why that person bought it and it wasn’t because of the yucky “secret” the fictitious photographer harbored. No, it was the namedropping of all the famous photographers and the photography scene. Which, incidentally, Maude is pretty disparaging about. I snorted out loud over her description of what happens at openings and galleries. And how amateur photographers always carry light meters around their necks. I liked the descriptions of how she snagged various portraits of famous people including a creepy D H Lawrence. But the story got pretty nasty very quickly. Maybe I’m prudish. I hadn’t looked at the book very closely in all the years it has been in my possession and I thought the title referred to a movie theater not the interior images stored inside one’s brain. I really like that idea.

[Saira Binte]

I can never forget Maude and how she made me feel . She suffered in mind so much. Treated like a black sheep in her family . Considered herself ugly and the writer's lack of being vivid in describing her appearance was sort of a purposeful absence. You just know how she and other feels and react to her looks but you cant picture her. Then this god damn love triangle and unrequited love she feels with her own siblings which is result of her own plotting leaves her sort of abandoned and forgotten.

Any woman would have died out of lovesickness yet her mind never stops her indulging herself in dark humour (for her it 's like 19th century MEMES) and creating concepts of perspective and photography. NO DOUBT IT'S HER SENSE OF HUMOUR AND PHOTOGRAPHY MAKES HER LIVE WAY AHEAD OF TIME AS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER.

Just as in lack of words or silence there is expression her comprehension of blindness leads to another dimension of vision. What you cant see (but uou can hear,smell and feel) explain a picture more than what you can see

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this book solely because it is so rare for me to have a physical copy of anything that if i ever have an actual book, I NEED to read it. Never have i powered through the pages of a book out of pure spite for the main character as much as this one. For most of the book I found maude completely unbearable; she is so obtuse, so self-centered, so unaware of how anyone aside from herself is capable of complexity. I was reading on for the eventual heartbreak, or tragedy, or anything that would hold her by the shoulder and rattle her with as much intensity as i would if i were to actually meet this woman. And then that moment came. and it went. and multiple times I asked myself why I was still reading. and yet i was.

[Tom Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theroux truly gets at the heart of the matter with this masterful novel. Maude Pratt is one cantankerous woman, yet so complicated and obtuse. She is the master (mistress) of her fate and so keeps plugging along. The writing is beautiful-take any sentence and enjoy. I thought the plot of her life unique, with her unrequited love for Orlando through dedicating her whole career for the chance of attaining that love.

[Massanutten Regional Library · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bill, Central patron, August 2019, 3 stars:

A novel about a woman photographer. I wasn't thrilled with the plot, but the author's creative use of the English language was wonderful. One example: "The spikes of mist ... began to lift on the crewcut marshes and revealed in flecks of escaping light nature's frostbitten eyesores."

[Eleanor Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really good writing, enjoyed the way the author described things from Maude’s pov, it painted a picture of the scenes and the photographs. Wasn’t expecting the ‘big secret’ from the blurb so that was a shock! The one thing I struggled with was Maude, I found her unlikeable and at times I couldn’t believe that she would act that way, which took me out of the story at times.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an unusual story. It started too slowly for me but it got much more interesting as I went along. I gave it a 4 and not a 5 because Theroux didn't do a great job with a woman's voice. I've never had one negative thing to say about him in the past, but this was not up to his usual quality.

[J · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dark, biting, satirical and dated. I can admire it for what it is, but a story lacking a protagonist or (or a real antagonist, or any sympathetic characters) is not enjoyable to read... Could have been a short story with the same effect.

[Pascale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frankly I wonder why I persevered with this book when I've found it difficult to stick to anything lately. I guess it has to do with my partiality for unreliable narrators (as well as a strong memory of "Kowloon Tong"). This is the story of a fictional pioneer of photography, Maude Pratt, who is forced to revisit her entire life when an ambitious young curator offers her a major retrospective just as she is entering her eighth decade. Maude gives Frank the green light to comb through her archives stored in a windmill where she hasn't set foot in a very long time. Maude is a spinster and still lives in the house where she grew up on Cape Cod. Her father was a stockbroker and quite well off until Maude had a major hit exhibiting pictures taken at a banquet where freaks were forced to perform in the nude in front of businessmen, him included. Strangely enough in the context of today's numerous allegations surfacing in France, one of the main themes of this novel is incest, a fact I didn't know before I started reading. The defining feature of Maude's life is her passionate love for her brother Orlando. In order to incite Orlando to sleep with her, she tells him, falsely, that their friends Sandy and Blanche are having sex together. What Maude doesn't know is that 1/Orlando has been sleeping with Blanche 2/Orlando has also been sleeping with his other sister Phoebe. Maude's revelation gives Orlando a perfect excuse to stop his affair with Blanche and concentrate on his relationship with Phoebe, who is his one true love. When Maude stumbles upon them screwing in the windmill, she temporarily loses her eyesight, which ought to derail her career as a photographer but doesn't because her dad appoints himself her manager and makes quite a success of it. Maude's eyesight is restored after she sleeps with one of Orlando's army buddy while thinking that she is at last fucking her brother. How weird is that? Later Orlando and Phoebe drown themselves, and it's only when a picture Maude took of them screwing in the windmill is exhumed by Frank that she realizes they committed suicide because she knew their secret. Maybe this lugubrious and implausible plot could have worked as an opera libretto at some point but as a novel it just does not.

[Judy Blaine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful theme, awful protagonist, awful inscrutable interior dialog. Could not finish.

[Katharine B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the wit in this novel.

[Slow Culture Magazine · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of our favorite Penguins EVER. On par with Graham Greene in the field of simplified human studies.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

... I didn't expect the incest in this book... But it was very enjoyable because of the writing style.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nope. Not for me. Did not finish. Prose quality was excellent but I didn’t connect with any of the characters, didn’t enjoy the story, and finally at 33%, I decided it wasn’t worth the torture.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found it hard to stay interested in the characters. Interesting story though - creative and written with great detail. I read the whole book. Didn't gain anything from reading it.

[Dave Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://electrichalibut.blogspot.com/2...

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating character study that deserves more than the melodrama driving it.

[Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books. Whereas Theroux often has a hard time depicting love convincingly and sometimes doesn't even try, I found the unrequited love between brother and sister in this book to be fierce and intensely tragic. The historical backdrop of the development of photography is brilliantly conceived and realized, as is the ongoing dialogue of the old woman, retired, reliving her past on Cape Cod, with a naive young agent who has arrived to help her prepare a retrospective exhibition. In many ways uncharacteristic of Theroux's brash, egocentric style, this book uses a strong feminine voice that evokes a very unforgettable personality. Good fun to read.

May, 2011 - I just finished re-reading this book for the third time and loved it even more. Paul Theroux's early work displays a genius with prose that is nothing less than exquisite in Picture Palace. The plot is full of delightful ironies: the photographer who goes blind and who is unrecognized because she has never allowed herself to be photographed. At one point Theroux unleashes an unforgettable diatribe against pornography as the lowest form of photography. Maud Pratt's series of portraits of famous writers allows him to get in a few digs about authors he loves or hates.

Theroux was at his best in the late 70s, early 80s with works such as The Consul's File, The Mosquito Coast, and The Great Railway Bazaar, then began to deteriorate badly with such embarrassing flops as Kingdom by the Sea, O-Zone, and The Black House. It's astonishing how his style changed (for the worse) over time. This one, however, will always remain at the top of my list.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Theroux, who may best be known for his travel writing, has written a novel about unrequited love and the way it motivates the life and art of the protagonist. While Maude Pratt, world famous photographer, prepares for a retrospective of her work, long suppressed memories come to the forefront of her mind and lead her to the awful truth of a family tragedy.

The book explores the creation of art, photography as art and as voyerism, love and unrequited love, beauty out of ugliness, and so much more. This is a book I could read again and find more to consider.

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. It's the gorgeously written tale of a pioneering female photographer, whose life is directed by her forbidden love and lust for her charismatic brother, Orlando. Picture Palace is gripping and beautiful, melancholic and ultimately tragic. I wept real tears for the whole half of one chapter near the end.
As a landscape photographer, I was impressed by how Theroux really nailed some of my own thoughts on photography.
Vivid in its detail, sumptuous in its prose, I'd give Picture Palace a thousand stars if I could.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is hilarious and witty. I highly recommend it. The main character is an unattractive seventy-something tough cookie who is having a retrospective of her photography at a NYC museum (MOMA I think.) She jumps back in forth between her past and present. The story is so good I did not want it to end.

[Marvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't particularly fond of the story, about an unlovable character--a 70-year-old female photographer--who loved her own brother. But the storytelling itself was fascinating, a photographer reviewing her life through her "third eye" (her camera), but also noting all that the camera could not reveal. It was basically an extended metaphor, a fascinating & illuminating technique.

[Jean-Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've ever been a photojournalist, this is the one to read. Francisco Goldman gave it to me at the Guatemala airport years ago together with the prescient inscription about how it would one day make sense. Frank, you were right.

[Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful story of unrequited love. Very, very wordy, full of wonderful descriptions and inner life of an artist. Usually I don't enjoy so many similes, adjectives, beautiful sentences, but it fits this story as we were looking at it through photographer's eyes.

[GK · Rating 5 out of 5]

1972 Whitbread Novel

An awesome look at a photographer's life and work, through her eyes because of an upcoming retrospective.

[Ainsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A long slog to get through this one. When something was happening, it was great, but al lot of nothing goes on.

[Timothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember nothing about this book, which I read when it first came out. Almost nothing. I remember sort of liking it, but thought it was a bit pat.

[Carolyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bitter, cold. Not a fan.