The Photographer's Wife

by Suzanne Joinson (Artist)

By the author of A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, an LA Times bestseller: a beautiful and gripping story of love and betrayal, set in 1920s Jerusalem and 1930s Sussex.

Jerusalem, 1920: in an already fractured city, eleven-year-old Prudence feels the tension rising as her architect father launches an ambitious – and wildly eccentric – plan to redesign the Holy City by importing English parks to the desert. Prue, known as the ‘little witness’, eavesdrops underneath the tables of tearooms and behind the curtains of the dance-halls of the city’s elite, watching everything but rarely being watched herself. Around her, British colonials, exiled Armenians and German officials rub shoulders as they line up the pieces in a political game: a game destined to lead to disaster.

When Prue’s father employs a British pilot, William Harrington, to take aerial photographs of the city, Prue is uncomfortably aware of the attraction that sparks between him and Eleanora, the English wife of a famous Jerusalem photographer. And, after Harrington learns that Eleanora’s husband is a nationalist, intent on removing the British, those sparks are fanned dangerously into a flame.

Years later, in 1937, Prue is an artist living a reclusive life by the sea with her young son, when Harrington pays her a surprise visit. What he reveals unravels her world, and she must follow the threads that lead her back to secrets long-ago buried in Jerusalem. The Photographer’s Wife is a powerful story of betrayal: between father and daughter, between husband and wife, and between nations and people, set in the complex period between the two world wars.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Middle East, British Literature, Jewish, 20th Century

Hardcover

First published February 2, 2016

About the author

From author's website:

Hello,

My second novel The Photographer's Wife is out by Bloomsbury in the UK and US. This is what The New York Times had to say

My debut novel A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar was published by Bloomsbury in 2012. It was a US National Bestseller, a Guardian/Observer Book of the Year
2012 and translated into 16 languages. It was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin literary award 2014.

I have written for a range of places including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Independent, Vogue UK, Lonely Planet and many others. I have published
short stories, essays, travel pieces and reviews.

My short story, 'Theory of Flight' was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and an essay 'I've Never Told Anyone This Before...' was broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

In 2011 I was writer in residence at the 1930s Art Deco Shoreham Airport in Sussex. My non-fiction piece LAILA AHMED won a New Writing Ventures prize in 2008.

From 2002-2012 I worked part-time in the literature department of the British Council travelling regularly in the Middle East, China, Russia and Western and Eastern Europe. I have worked in and explored Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Greece and many other countries.

I now write full-time and travel as much as I can. I live with with my husband, two tiny children and a scruffy dog in a small seaside town in Sussex, England. I am currently the Writer-in-Residence at the wonderful Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in West Sussex and can often be found wafting around the South Downs National Park. I sometimes tweet at @suzyjoinson.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

For awhile....
I couldn't seem to understand the 'heart' of this story. I didn't know what the 'issues' were.
I got stuck in trying to understand why Jerusalem wanted to transport 'parks' from England. Dig up trees?

Also, for the longest time, I couldn't understand why an 11 year old child was the narrator of this story. I wanted to know 'who' the wife of the Photographer was, why this story was about her. I was suspended in frustration....but kept reading.

Prudence, the 11 year old,(1920), lived in Jerusalem in a hotel with her father, Charles Ashton, who was an architect. I've been in Jerusalem --I don't remember seeing any English-looking-gardens....
but I have given money to plant trees - (as gifts for Bar Mitzvah honors). So, I questioned the purpose of the gardens and parks...as to how much was relevant to the overall story.
I was getting stuck in wanting to understand more about the 'parks' and gardens' --(which wasn't the main story).
See, how stupid I felt?

I stayed with it. Others may have quit --but I wanted to try understand and discover some history I knew nothing about. (which I did)--
Hallelujah, 'finally' I understood the bigger picture...but not completely until the last 20% of the book. --So, I'm satisfied.

Eleanor, (British), is married to Khaled Rasul (an Arab photographer). Yet, another man comes into the picture when William (British) also comes to Jerusalem who had been a pilot in WWI. He had a relationship with Eleanor when they were both in England years before. Of course William thinks Eleanor married the wrong man. He still loves her. William was often drinking a lot and arrogant. It seemed to me that maybe he had PTSD from the war.

When Prudence (called Prue), was a child with no friends really of her own -- (her own mother was sent to an asylum) --she idolize Eleanor (glamorous woman), and was often snooping in areas where she didn't belong. She was a very observant child growing up around adults.
However--I never thought of her as a spy. She did speak several languages. Her Arab father hired a man named Ihsan to teach her Arabic.
I couldn't figure out why Prue was very interested in the adults love-lives, though (I wasn't very much).
Prue got herself entangled in everyone's affairs....and then in the middle of bloody-violence.

When the story would alternate to later years 1937 - we see Prue, an adult woman, living in Shoreham, with her little boy Skip. Her marriage didn't last to a man named Piers. Prue is an artist in her adult life. 'Skip', even though a minor character --(I adored him).

Its the last 20% of the book I found most fascinating --(also it allowed me to understand the entire book more).
Prue had witnessed things in Jerusalem that the British intelligence were threatening her with. She tried to say she was only a child --and not political.
But was she, 'only' a child, and 'not' political? I think when we become adults, but are still haunted by things from our childhood --then maybe we were never really given the opportunity to be a 'child'. Maybe we were always 'little adults', or a "little witness".

3.5 rating

[Jennifer]

Did Not Finish

15% of the way in I decided to cut my losses and call it a day with this book.

Since I didn't finish I'm not going to assign any stars.

I know that I only read 15%, but even with that amount under my belt I can't explain at all what this book was about, who the characters were, or what was going on with the story.

Not sure if my head just wasn't in this one or if something was just "off"

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed with this book. I liked the dreamy quality it had and I enjoyed the flashbacks - moving between 1920 and 1937. I didn't care about any of the characters, though. Prue was an unlikable child and an unlikable adult. Admittedly, she had a rough go of it, but I didn't feel much sympathy for her plight.

Nothing really happened. There was all this spying going on, but I couldn't figure out what ultimately happened with it. No idea at the end who was good and who was not. I think it was intentionally ambiguous. I did not know much about Jerusalem and the British and I still don't, even though I read this book.

I never understood or cared about the photographer's wife. Or the pilot. Or Ihsan or Khaled. At the end I was like "well, whatever."

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was suppose to be an easy to like book. After all, Joinson got a lot of things right, alternating story lines, interesting international locations, political intrigue, a romance, etc., but it just didn't work for me. Primarily because I didn't care about the story, it's tough to describe, but there was a particular quality to her writing, aloofness or something, that just didn't really engage and neither did any of her adult characters, especially the main one. Observed from a distance the narration establishes, it was a perfectly decent read and very quick one, some of the writing was quite good, but the book didn't really move or wow. The highlight of it was the Jerusalem in 1920, strange exotic unsettled land under an imposed British rule, that was fascinating. One only wishes the book sustained that sense of wander. Then again, this is definitely the sort of thing that's very much an acquired taste and certainly should have a loving audience once published. Thanks Netgalley.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I simply could not get through this book. I did not find the characters interesting enough to pull me into it.

I received this book from NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for an honest review.

[Cindy H. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was really intrigued to read The Photographer's Wife, as the setting (1920's Palestine) and storyline description(alternating storylines, tangled love affairs, historical context) seemed to be a sure fire hit. Ugh! I was so disappointed. It took me several weeks to trudge through the this read and I still quit two thirds in. I was baffled throughout the narrative and completely detached from the narrator and the key characters. Seldom do I feel frustrated from reading a novel but The Photographer's Wife held little merit for me. I can not honestly review this title since I was unmotivated to finish it.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing with an ARC.

[Hermien · Rating 2 out of 5]

The setting and historical element were what made me read this book. Going back and forth between 1920 Jerusalem and 1937 England worked well but in the end I didn't really feel engaged in the story and none of the characters were particularly appealing.

[Debbie Floyd · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 to 3 stars,

[Davida Chazan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just updated my review of Joinson's gloriously written historical fiction novel goes from Jerusalem in 1920 to Shoreham, England in 1937. Find out else I thought of this book in my review here. https://tcl-bookreviews.com/2016/02/1...

[Bridget]

I couldn’t get into this book. Rather dull.

[Gary Severance · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Photographer’s Wife is an interesting story of characters living in tumultuous times in Jerusalem between the two World Wars. The story begins in 1920 in Jerusalem as an architect Charles Ashton develops odd plans to partly redesign the Holy City by creating English style parks. A naïve but keen observer of the interaction of the characters is Ashton’s daughter, 11 year old Prudence, who takes her own photographs and writes her impressions (in codes) of events. She observes the relationship of Lieutenant William Harrington, a pilot hired by her father to take aerial photos of Jerusalem and Eleanora Rasul wife of an eminent photographer Khaled Rasul. Complicated personal relationships develop mirroring the volatile social/political situation in the Holy City.

Jerusalem is similar to Alexandria at the time, with a rich fusion of British, Eastern, and European characters all striving to meet their personal needs and to influence the future of the region according to their own political motivations. Similar to the situation in Alexandria depicted in the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell, Joinson describes growing resentment of Colonial British activities by competing factions in Jerusalem.

Jumping from 1920 to 1937, “Prue” is an artist and single mother living quitely in Shoreham by the Sea, Sussex. She and her son have escaped the pressures of the London art world in the aftermath of the Surrealist impact on exhibitions, and Prue is recovering from a tumultuous marriage breakup. Lieutenant Harrington comes back into Prue’s life causing her to review her early life in Jerusalem considering secrets important in her personal life and the political history of the Middle East region between Wars.

Joinson’s style of writing in The Photographer’s Wife keeps the reader at a distance from the characters. Readers may find it difficult to identify with the characters living in Jerusalem or even care much about them in the beginning. British colonials, exiled Armenians, and Greek, Arab, and Jewish officials all vie for personal gain and political power. This is also true of Durrell’s four volume work in which readers are held at bay relying on the narration of characters living in Alexandria who are caught up in contemporary circumstances and unconscious life choices in a city with a long and complicated history. A large part of the international crisis in the Middle East today may be due to the impossibility of understanding all of the chaotic personal and political interactions that make up the history of the region. Up until now, there has been a failure of Western/European world leaders to see the negative consequences of being kept at a distance from the inherent intrigue of the area.

Of course, Joinson does not attempt to match the scope, insightful character development, and intense style of Lawrence Durrell. But, the novel will be interesting and engaging for many readers.

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the author's first book and am happy to say I loved this one as well. The Photographer's Wife isn't about the titular character but instead a young girl who happened to live in the same hotel in 1920s Jerusalem. Two narratives of Prudence Miller are told in this story. First, we meet her as an adult, an accomplished sculptor, living in 1937 England. She gets a visit from a man from her past and then the narration goes back to 1920s Jerusalem when she was 11 years old living with her architect father. This is where the majority of the story takes place with occasional switches back to 1937. I wasn't too particularly into the historical aspect which had to do with British Colonialism in the area at the time, but I enjoy stories taking place between the wars. While the setting was unfamiliar to me, as were the political aspects, I was intrigued from the outset. The book involves many intense topics such as madness, adultery, rape, war and atrocities by those in power but overall the book is more about character than plot. Prudence repeats her past by marrying a man like her father and suffers psychological problems, as did her mother. It's not a happy story, but it is a love story, both of unrequited love and love of Jerusalem itself. Even though a lot happens, there is very little action and I can see why some reviewers didn't like the book. However, I found myself lost in its pages, amongst the alleys of Jerusalem, and tore through the book in a couple of settings. I loved this journey to the Holy Land almost as much as "A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar"s trip to China and will look forward to Joinson's ensuing novels, wondering to which foreign land she'll whisk me away to next.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jerusalem in the 1920's provides a dangerous and exotic setting for this historical novel and the young girl at the heart of the story is both a participant and an observer in things far more complex than she imagines. And, perhaps more complicated than the reader can either.

This book intrigued me because of the moral ambiguity of all of its characters. It had dashes of John le Carre and maybe a smidgen of Graham Greene. I was never sure "who's on first," but was compelled to try to sort it out.

The strength of the book for me was the drama created by the loneliness and pain experienced by two of the central characters. Their yearning (for love, for involvement, for connection) propelled them into situations that endangered themselves, or their community, or their country. . . . we were never sure, but we felt the drama, the uncertainty, and the potential problems.

I don't usually relish being confused by a story, nor do I seek out the dark side of human nature in a novel, but this worked for me and I thoroughly enjoyed the reading experience.

Netgalley provided me with a complimentary copy of the book in return for an honest review,

[Tish · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say that the Goodread's description of this book sounds a lot better than the book actually was and I wonder if whoever wrote it actually read the book. Anyway, the time and place in which (part of) the book is set are really interesting to me: Jerusalem in the 1920s. However, the book is a bit of a mess, jumping around in both time and place, so that it is hard to connect to the characters or the plot. By the end of the book, I felt like I had a better understanding of the characters and what had happened earlier, but I think the book would have worked better if it had been more straightforward. Throughout most of the book, I just kept wishing it was over, but by the end of the book, it was up to 3 stars. I notice from other reviews that a lot of readers abandoned it altogether, so clearly the obscurity, if intentional, didn't work for many people.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a free advance copy of this book.

[PennsyLady (Bev) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book by the beautiful cover art.

I'm sorry to say that i didn't experience the same love affair with the story line.
I was interested initially in why Prue's architect father would want to "launch an ambitious (and crazy) plan to redesign the Holy City by importing English parks to the desert."
The switch of time line (alternating between the 1920's and 1937) was marked by year and could be easily seen.
I just had difficulty following the historical setting and the psychological importance of the behavior of certain characters.
There were a few "brutal" moments and they were brutal indeed.

I hesitated to rate this book, and I'm not speaking of historical developments.
I had no clue when I began the book and I'm only a few steps ahead now.

But, that's ok because someone else will understand and appreciate elements of the story and the writing style.
I'm not that someone.

[Sandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read Suzanne Joinson's', A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar. I gave it four star because I was pulled in by not just the story, but by the gorgeous prose. I was so disappointed in this book that I did not finish it. This story takes place in 1937 and the back story in 1920. There is a large cast of characters none of who I particularly liked. The author does not seem to give precedence to one character and after reading nearly half the book still did not know what it was about. That was not because the mystery kept me enthralled, but because though the author may have known where she was headed, she didn't entice me to follow along.

[Olya · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley-Thank you!

Honestly, I don't have much to say about this book. It was so dull and boring. I am surprised I was able to finish at all. I just couldn't get myself to care about the story.

[Patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book so I kept reading thinking the story would make sense eventually. Unfortunately, it never really does come together.

[Marisa Turpin · Rating 1 out of 5]

What. The. F...?

I did not get this book. At all. And yet I read the whole thing. I read a few reviews before I picked it up. I should have listened. Damn the wasted time!

[Lorri · Rating 2 out of 5]

The characters didn't appeal to me, and I found the novel to be lacking in substance.

I did finish the book. I found it to be a grim story, and one that didn't hold any fascination for me.

[Lesli · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly about the architect's weird child. Guess that isn't such a good title. There's no story here. Just self-absorbed people floating along in their little bubbles.

[Micebyliz · Rating 2 out of 5]

i'm sorry i didn't really like this book. It seemed too much like a stream of consciousness, except it was harder to follow. I'm not really sure what the story is and i couldn't relate to the characters.
They were all over the page and it was difficult to pin down.

[Snoops · Rating 1 out of 5]

I very much wasted my time on this book. I couldn’t even really tell you what happens. There’s so many characters and none of them have any depth to them. I don’t know why I didn’t just give it up !

[Fitch O'connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Photographer’s Wife, the second novel by Suzanne Joinson, is a compelling read. The narrative is largely shared between Jerusalem in 1920 - where we meet Prue, an 11 year old summoned by her father but largely ignored by him - and the East Sussex coast in 1937, where Prue, now a successful artist but newly separated from her husband, is accompanied by her young son, who is quickly turning into a feral beachcomber.

The novel is populated by an extraordinary cast of characters, most of whom seem to be either searching for answers or else avoiding questions, or doing both simultaneously. Jerusalem in 1920 is fractious and there is hostility towards British rule. Prue, nicknamed ‘the little witness’ by staff of the hotel where she lives, is left largely to her own devices and spends a considerable amount of her time spying on the guests – watching, thinking, puzzling. She is befriended by the eccentric Eleanora, who is married to a well-known local photographer. Prue discovers that Eleanora’s husband is also a fervent, anti-British nationalist. The arrival of a childhood friend of Eleanora’s stirs the flames of jealousy from different quarters.

The dark colours and sepia tones used throughout the book are extraordinarily well rendered by Joinson who presents us with a whole troupe of troubled, haunted characters, who struggle to make sense of the times and the places in which they live. All the main characters are secretive and complex and are only partially revealed to us, as if we are not permitted to know them well. The glimpses we are given produce a photographic flash effect – sudden, very bright images lasting a moment, surrounded by impenetrable shadow. There is a dark thread of foreboding which runs through both narratives and one senses them gradually being drawn together, disentangling twisted relationships and hinting at answers to the questions that torment. The overall effect is darkly tinted, and deeply disturbing.

In this way, Joinson creates something of a page-turner and Prue’s curiosity is transferred to the reader as the complexities of the plots reveal themselves. I was particularly struck by the way that the author did not try to give neat, compact answers to all the dilemmas faced by her characters and, instead, sometimes left the reader in much the same state as they were – the same worries and anxieties. This adds to the sense of place, of being there, each left to be our own ‘little witness’ to the events unfolding.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eleanora Rasul is the photographer’s wife, an English woman who married the Arabian Khaled Rasul. Rasul is involved in trying to expose the bad things the English- who are ruling Jerusalem at the time- are doing; in secret, of course. But the book isn’t really about her; it’s mainly about Prudence Ashton, who, in 1920 when the story starts, is the eleven year old daughter of an architect who has plans to redesign Jerusalem in a more English manner, this area being at that point part of the British Empire. To make more accurate maps of the area, he has hired a pilot to take Eleanor up so she can take aerial photos- a first for the time. What he doesn’t realize is that the pilot, William Harrington, grew up with Eleanora and has always loved her. He hopes he can steal her away from her husband and back to England with him.

The story follows Prue later as an 18 year old bride to an abusive husband, and later still as the mother of a young son she is bringing up alone after fleeing her marriage. Harrington shows up in her life again and threatens to derail the precarious life she has created.

Everybody in the story has secrets, some more closely guarded than others; some are sexual, some are political, some are psychological. Some are revealed right at the beginning while others do not come to light until the very end.

The novel has all the right components to make a great story. Political intrigue, love affairs, a mother in an asylum… it’s endless. But somehow it didn’t come together for me. I disliked many of the characters (like Prue’s lying, cheating, neglectful father); others I didn’t actively dislike but just couldn’t like them or even work up interest in them. These people are (mostly) not horrible, but they are all so wrapped up in themselves that they are the sort of folks that you just want to walk away from. I make an exception for Prue; I didn’t care for her a lot but her whole life is so awful that I give her a pass. The one person I genuinely liked- Prue’s language tutor- may have been partly responsible for some horrors. The political intrigue I was confused by a lot of the time, and while there is one gruesome episode, most of it takes place off screen. I really couldn’t wait to be done with the book, sadly.

[Christina McLain · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main problem with this book, I think, is that it attempts to be another Atonement and it is not. This novel like Atonement, is a story about betrayal. A young girl is sent to live with her ambitious architect father in Jerusalem in 1920 and severely neglected by him, falls into a nest of expatriates all with warring agendas. She is used by one of the few adults who is kind to her and ends up betraying her country as she collects information about Britain's activities in the Holy City. A pilot who survived WWI sees his friends destroyed by the insanity of war and gives secrets to the Germans. The woman he loves desperately needs to betray her husband by not bearing his child. An Irish madman goes on a murderous rampage and betrays his own humanity. And on and on. Though there is a somewhat happy ending, most of the book is profoundly bleak. I think what Joinson is trying to show us is how the treachery of empires bleeds into people and ruins lives but most of the characters are unlikeable and their motivations so murky it makes for a challenging read. Somehow this novels lacks the transcendence which saves the day in Atonement. I can see why a lot of readers were baffled by it all, though I suspect many just wanted to turn away from the confusion and ugliness of the story.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book. I didn't. In fact, I wanted to give up many times. It was just so ... cold and mean (in the sort of thin, ungenerous sense). I didn't like any of the characters - they were unsettled and pointy. I can't even conjure up the words I need to describe this story. And perhaps in that sense, the author was successful - if she was aiming for a sort of forlorn, down-at-the-heels novel - she achieved exactly that. Bleak.

[Rochelle Sewell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young girl on a train watches another passenger, a man with a bird in a cage. Prue Ashton guesses the identity of this man, the pilot that her father has employed to join him in his eccentric revolution to redesign old Jerusalem. This is the 1920’s. Tensions are high. The British are rubbing shoulders with other upper class ex-pats and Armenian migrants, while an underground nationalist movement is intent of removing the British from their land. Set in a time when conflict was brewing between Christians, Jews and Arabs living in Jerusalem, this novel describes some of the history that has shaped this central part of the Middle East.

Prue becomes the narrator for the story. Through child’s eyes the reader sees the social conflict in the 1920’s, and her father’s behaviour is a metaphor for the actions of the British during this interwar period. The story follows a one-sided love story between the pilot (and much traumatised) war veteran William Harrington, and the British wife of a famous Arab photographer. Prue is often ignored by the adults around her, choosing to spend much of her time eavesdropping on their lives. It is through her memories that these stories are retold.

The reader is re-introduced to an adult Prue, living alone by the English seaside with her young son in 1937. She is visited by the pilot, seeking answers to traumatic events that had occurred during the conflict 17 years prior.

This is a complex book. It’s clearly based on a significant body of research and a thorough understanding of 1920’s Jerusalem. However the version of events are filtered by the child’s interpretation of the world around her and by the character’s later recall of childhood memories. It’s complicated further by a side story about her relationship with her ex-husband, which draws parallels with her relationship with her father. This makes the thread difficult to follow at first, and it’s not till much later in the book that the inner plot is revealed. Its beautiful imagery and focus on the raw emotion of the characters, blurs some of the more violent parts of the story. It makes tough topics more palatable read.

In a clever way, none of the characters are flawless, and in fact many aren’t particularly likeable. The reader is left in suspense, never knowing what any of the characters are capable of. This book should not be left half read, but it does take perseverance to get to the heart of the story.

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

The smell & heat of Jerusalem rises off the page. Suzanne Joinson has travelled to, lived in and worked in a number of Middle East countries and this shows in her fiction. Here, she creates a Jerusalem so vivid you can feel it on your skin. This is the story of an eleven year old girl, Prue, as she grows up in 1920s Jerusalem with an absent mother and a father who lets her run wild, and the people she encounters. As a child she observes much, lurking in the shadows at her father’s parties. The political tensions swirl as the country recovers from the Great War and the next is anticipated.
Prue’s father, a city architect, employs a British pilot to overfly the area and provide him with reconnaissance photographs. In Jerusalem, the pilot Willie finds Eleanora, the girl he loved and lost in Britain before the Great War. Now his body bears the burn scars of his war, while she lives in Jerusalem and is married to an Arab photographer. So there are political tensions and romantic tensions, both underpinned by the use of photography to reveal or conceal the truth.
In the second strand of the story, Prue is an adult living in England, a sculptor and mother living in a beach hut at Shoreham. When an unexpected visitor arrives, what happened in Jerusalem is examined in detail. This novel is about truth, manipulation of the truth, and in particular the use of photography in the inter-war world of political influence and manipulation. It is not a spy novel, but it at its core is the rule of the British rule, the agitation of the nationalists, and the general exploitation of people for political ends.
What did Prue see and hear? What did she give her friend Ihsan? What is it that Willie wants when he visits Shoreham? And did everyone use eleven year old Prue for their own ends?
This novel demands patience and I think will reward re-reading, some subtle plot points passed me by and so I never fully bought-into the tension at the end. In places it seemed unnecessarily complicated with perhaps one or two characters too many. In particular, the title suggests the story is about Eleanora, but I wanted to read more about Prue. It is really her story so perhaps the title should be ‘The Architect’s Daughter’.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-revie...

[L · Rating 3 out of 5]

'The photographer's wife' is a haunting, disturbing and extremely complex read that is quite unlike anything I have read before. The prose is wonderfully detailed and exquisite, and Suzanne Joinson is an accomplished writer who has certainly done a lot of historical research for this book.

Reminiscent of 'Atonement' this darkly sinister at times, dreamlike novel keeps one in suspense throughout.

Set in 1920's Jerusalem, it tells the story of Prue as a kid and how she becomes entangled in deep affairs with William Harrington, a British pilot who loves Eleanora, the wife of a Jerusalem photographer --a nationalist intent on removing the British. In the 30's Prue is married to Piers, a cold man who has innumerable affairs and doesn't love her.

'Memory is not a stream of photographic images

I personally found the spy-style storyline confusing to follow, especially when it kept changing from one character to another time frame. Also, some parts I found somewhat disturbing, such as sexual acts and children, and how the married characters in the novel all seem to have lovers and be unfaithful. What added to my distress was the sick mind of the photographer in his work, which I wouldn't class as art.

Shocking, seductive and deeply complex this is certainly a novel to get lost in, but not one that I will be reading again as I found it to be too much.