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Black Mirror
Victoria Morrell was once a great artist. She led the high life - living and working in Paris, mixing with the artists of the Surrealist movement. Her work was largely forgotten in the fifties and sixties, but was rediscovered in the seventies when she became something of a cult figure on the London art scene. She now lives as a recluse in Hampstead, London. And she is dying.
Anna Griffin is the young woman commissioned to write a biography of Victoria's life. In many ways their lives strangely intersect, since they grew up in the same mining town and share preoccupations with underground spaces, deserts and the many forms of grief.
In a compelling double narrative, Gail Jones tracks Victoria's past as it intertwines with Anna's life. The stories Victoria tells enable both women to enter into new forms of sympathy and understanding.
Elegant, enthralling, and emotionally charged, Black Mirror is both a novel of love and family mystery, and a meditation on the nature of artistic vision and obsession.
Anna Griffin is the young woman commissioned to write a biography of Victoria's life. In many ways their lives strangely intersect, since they grew up in the same mining town and share preoccupations with underground spaces, deserts and the many forms of grief.
In a compelling double narrative, Gail Jones tracks Victoria's past as it intertwines with Anna's life. The stories Victoria tells enable both women to enter into new forms of sympathy and understanding.
Elegant, enthralling, and emotionally charged, Black Mirror is both a novel of love and family mystery, and a meditation on the nature of artistic vision and obsession.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
7 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
Gail Jones
40 books138 followersGail Jones is the author of two short-story collections, a critical monograph, and the novels BLACK MIRROR, SIXTY LIGHTS, DREAMS OF SPEAKING, SORRY and FIVE BELLS.
Three times shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, her prizes include the WA Premier's Award for Fiction, the Nita B. Kibble Award, the Steele Rudd Award, the Age Book of the Year Award, the Adelaide Festival Award for Fiction and the ASAL Gold Medal. She has also been shortlisted for international awards, including the IMPAC and the Prix Femina.
Her fiction has been translated into nine languages. Gail has recently taken up a Professorship at UWS.
Three times shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, her prizes include the WA Premier's Award for Fiction, the Nita B. Kibble Award, the Steele Rudd Award, the Age Book of the Year Award, the Adelaide Festival Award for Fiction and the ASAL Gold Medal. She has also been shortlisted for international awards, including the IMPAC and the Prix Femina.
Her fiction has been translated into nine languages. Gail has recently taken up a Professorship at UWS.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 23, 2013
boy, am i ever happy i accidentally found this book. i was browsing in the vancouver library, saw the title, pulled it out, thought "this looks interesting", and brought it home. and what a revelation, gail jones is simply an amazing writer.
the book tells the story of two women, anna and victoria, who, completely coincidentally, come from the same very small town in australia. victoria is an elderly artist who was involved with the surrealist movement in paris, and anna is writing her biography. and victoria is slowly dying.
the story goes back and forth between the present and the past, with large sections devoted to the earlier lives of both of them. but the most important aspect is how wonderfully luminescent gail jones writing is. she has written half a dozen other books, and i will be reading all of them. this is my best discovery of the year, so far.
very highly recommended, obviously.
the book tells the story of two women, anna and victoria, who, completely coincidentally, come from the same very small town in australia. victoria is an elderly artist who was involved with the surrealist movement in paris, and anna is writing her biography. and victoria is slowly dying.
the story goes back and forth between the present and the past, with large sections devoted to the earlier lives of both of them. but the most important aspect is how wonderfully luminescent gail jones writing is. she has written half a dozen other books, and i will be reading all of them. this is my best discovery of the year, so far.
very highly recommended, obviously.
December 30, 2017
Early on I almost gave up on this. I started keeping a list on the endpapers of some of the use of language that particularly irked me. Her language is rendered beautiful by its ornate imprecise superfluity. Overall I disagree with this approach. Language can be beautiful without being overdone. If this book had been a picture I would have hated it. Far from adding clarity, her overuse of words led to ambiguity which I do not believe was intentional.
I had never heard of the well-known Gail Jones until I went to see her talk with Coetzee and others recently. Her voice was odd and not entirely pleasing to me. Yet I wanted to listen. Strangely, that seems to reflect her style of writing, if this book is to be the judge.
rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
I had never heard of the well-known Gail Jones until I went to see her talk with Coetzee and others recently. Her voice was odd and not entirely pleasing to me. Yet I wanted to listen. Strangely, that seems to reflect her style of writing, if this book is to be the judge.
rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
July 13, 2012
Gail Jones is such a talented writer that it is astounding that so few people know her work. After reading 'Five Bells' I was determined to read everything she has written and this is the next choice. I was not disappointed. The device of using a young biographer interviewing a strangely-reluctant, elderly Surrealist artist works well. This idea is enhanced when you realise that the women, although living in London, share disturbing backgrounds, albeit decades apart, in the same ugly Australian mining town. Their diverse lives are slowly revealed as the novel progresses, and this all makes for an intriguing examination of the possibilities for artistic females during the course of the twentieth century.
March 8, 2018
‘I am waiting for this visitor so that I can tell my story and die.’
Victoria Morrell is an old woman with a rich past. Victoria was once an artist, living and working in Paris, where she knew the artists of the Surrealist movement. But now Victoria lives a reclusive life in Hampstead, London. She is dying.
Anna Griffin is the young woman who has been commissioned to write Victoria’s biography. She later remembers how she was so distracted when she set out for her first meeting with Anna that she forgot to take her umbrella and was soaked by rain.
Victoria wonders what to tell Anna and how:
‘How can she speak her own life when so much exists as unspeakable images, wound filmic and narcissistic in this old, old head?’
She’d prefer to bring Anna into her time than made to feel old by recounting her past.
The women discover that they both lived in the same mining town in Australia. This particularly pleases Victoria, and this new intimacy enables both women to recount their stories. But does writing a biography require a greater level of detachment? How similar are their lives? Is there a point of connection, or (coincidental, surely) intersections?
‘There is a stringency to writing biography that Anna seems unable to observe.’
I had to read this novel slowly to try to do justice to the imagery in Ms Jones’s writing. I may reread it at some stage better prepared to linger within and explore the images. There are a number of different elements to this novel: the lives of Anna and Victoria, their experiences of family and of grief. This is one of those novels where the pleasure of reading is in the journey through the pages: the ending is less important. Or is it? My conclusion could well be different next time.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Victoria Morrell is an old woman with a rich past. Victoria was once an artist, living and working in Paris, where she knew the artists of the Surrealist movement. But now Victoria lives a reclusive life in Hampstead, London. She is dying.
Anna Griffin is the young woman who has been commissioned to write Victoria’s biography. She later remembers how she was so distracted when she set out for her first meeting with Anna that she forgot to take her umbrella and was soaked by rain.
Victoria wonders what to tell Anna and how:
‘How can she speak her own life when so much exists as unspeakable images, wound filmic and narcissistic in this old, old head?’
She’d prefer to bring Anna into her time than made to feel old by recounting her past.
The women discover that they both lived in the same mining town in Australia. This particularly pleases Victoria, and this new intimacy enables both women to recount their stories. But does writing a biography require a greater level of detachment? How similar are their lives? Is there a point of connection, or (coincidental, surely) intersections?
‘There is a stringency to writing biography that Anna seems unable to observe.’
I had to read this novel slowly to try to do justice to the imagery in Ms Jones’s writing. I may reread it at some stage better prepared to linger within and explore the images. There are a number of different elements to this novel: the lives of Anna and Victoria, their experiences of family and of grief. This is one of those novels where the pleasure of reading is in the journey through the pages: the ending is less important. Or is it? My conclusion could well be different next time.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
August 25, 2016
I had not heard of Gail Jones until I read Sorry. I was so impressed with that book that I resolved to read another of Jones' books to confirm my impressions. Black Mirror did not disappoint. It confirmed Jones' mastery of language and imagery, and I found myself thoroughly engaged by the story.
I recommend Gail Jones on the basis of Sorry and Black Mirror.
I recommend Gail Jones on the basis of Sorry and Black Mirror.
June 30, 2024
Exquisite poetic prose, tender and elegant. I found it in a street library and it totally blew me away. I loved that it jumped back and forth from Kalgoorlie in its gold rush days to Paris in its glory days of the birth of Surrealism. You couldn’t get two worlds more far apart, yet Gail Jones makes them equally as interesting and poetic.
November 29, 2019
This is an earlier novel of one of my favourite Australian authors. Victoria Morrell was once a great artist. Anna Griffin is a young woman commissioned to write Vicroria's biography. Victoria ran away from her life as the daughter of a wealthy mine owner in West Australia. Anna grew up in the same mining town - her Father broken from working in the same mines. Victoria wound up hanging out with the Surrealists and Dadaists in Paris. As Anna interviews her the story interweaves showing how their lives intersected. There is discussion of art - what it means to create, what it means to try to get an audience for your art, how the art world can be cruel and manipulative. The stories Victoria tells - the 'black mirror' stories- allow both women to grown in understanding and empathy.
July 6, 2018
Brought to this after reading the brilliant Death of Noah Glass; this is as good, which means it's utterly beautiful.
December 20, 2023
3.5 stars. An interesting, partly historical fiction novel about a fictional biographer, Anna Griffin, writing about artist, Victoria Morrell. Both Anna and Victoria grew up in a gold mining town in Western Australia, though sixty years apart!
Victoria, in the 1930s travels to Paris and is involved in the surrealist circle of painters and artists during that time, including Salvador Dali, Andre Breton, and Marcel Duchamp.
The novel covers Victoria’s and Anna’s past, and their current lives.
Gail Jones fans should find this book a worthwhile reading experience. This is my fifth Gail Jones novel, with ‘Dreams of Speaking’ and ‘Sorry’ being my favourite novels.
This book was first published in 2002.
Victoria, in the 1930s travels to Paris and is involved in the surrealist circle of painters and artists during that time, including Salvador Dali, Andre Breton, and Marcel Duchamp.
The novel covers Victoria’s and Anna’s past, and their current lives.
Gail Jones fans should find this book a worthwhile reading experience. This is my fifth Gail Jones novel, with ‘Dreams of Speaking’ and ‘Sorry’ being my favourite novels.
This book was first published in 2002.
September 2, 2019
A feast of words, delights for the mind, a visceral journey of surrealism
January 10, 2016
I've become a big fan of Gail Jones' work. I recently read this early novel. It is about a young woman from Kalgoorlie who is writing an autobiography of a surrealist artist, who left her town long ago and made a life in Europe. While this book doesn’t have the technical control of her later novels, the imagery and ideas gave much delight.
October 30, 2013
Like a painting, with vivid imagery and gorgeously textured language. Later, a deeply moving elegie. The first book I have been able to enjoy after a period of failing to get interested in reading at all. I will be reading more of this author.
October 14, 2015
I was very interested in the subject matter but unfortunately I really couldn't get into this book, not for want of trying. It didn't capture me in the way I'd hoped and I gave up about a quarter way through. Might give it another go at some point though
October 24, 2013
I really thought I would enjoy this - and it had potential. It just could have been so much better. Quite a good twist at the end.
August 20, 2015
Bad things kept happening to the characters to make me sympathize with them but the characters themselves remained pretty bland...
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews