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Mirage
A young wife dares to defy convention - and takes a desperate gamble to hold the philandering husband she loves.
270 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1965
25 people want to read
About the author
Andrea Newman
62 books14 followersAndrea Newman (born 7 February 1938 in Dover, Kent) is an English author.
An only child, she taught at a grammar school after graduating with a degree in English from the Westfield College, University of London. A film version of her 1967 novel Three Into Two Won't Go, with a screenplay by Edna O'Brien, was released in 1969. It stars Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom, and was directed by Peter Hall.
Newman adapted her sixth novel A Bouquet of Barbed Wire (1969) for London Weekend Television (LWT) in 1976, as a seven-part serial. Newman recalled her work in 2010 at the time when it was being remade: "I never set out to shock, just to tell a story about an imaginary family, but I imagine most people would still disapprove of hitting your pregnant wife and having sex with her mother." The dramatisation was a popular success; its sequel, Another Bouquet, followed in 1977.
Another similar novel, Mackenzie, was dramatized by the BBC in 1980, starring Jack Galloway, Lynda Bellingham and Tracey Ullman. This adaptation was followed by Alexa (1968 – adapted for the BBC, 1982), A Sense of Guilt (1988 – adapted for the BBC, 1990), and An Evil Streak (1977 – adapted for LWT, 1999). In 2001, Newman was the writer for the television drama Pretending to Be Judith.
Her other novels include A Share of the World (1964), Mirage (1965), The Cage (1966) and A Gift of Poison (1991). A book of 15 short stories, Triangles, was published in 1990. It has been remarked that a frequent theme in Andrea Newman's novels is that with the advent of a baby, the family disintegrates.
An only child, she taught at a grammar school after graduating with a degree in English from the Westfield College, University of London. A film version of her 1967 novel Three Into Two Won't Go, with a screenplay by Edna O'Brien, was released in 1969. It stars Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom, and was directed by Peter Hall.
Newman adapted her sixth novel A Bouquet of Barbed Wire (1969) for London Weekend Television (LWT) in 1976, as a seven-part serial. Newman recalled her work in 2010 at the time when it was being remade: "I never set out to shock, just to tell a story about an imaginary family, but I imagine most people would still disapprove of hitting your pregnant wife and having sex with her mother." The dramatisation was a popular success; its sequel, Another Bouquet, followed in 1977.
Another similar novel, Mackenzie, was dramatized by the BBC in 1980, starring Jack Galloway, Lynda Bellingham and Tracey Ullman. This adaptation was followed by Alexa (1968 – adapted for the BBC, 1982), A Sense of Guilt (1988 – adapted for the BBC, 1990), and An Evil Streak (1977 – adapted for LWT, 1999). In 2001, Newman was the writer for the television drama Pretending to Be Judith.
Her other novels include A Share of the World (1964), Mirage (1965), The Cage (1966) and A Gift of Poison (1991). A book of 15 short stories, Triangles, was published in 1990. It has been remarked that a frequent theme in Andrea Newman's novels is that with the advent of a baby, the family disintegrates.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 19, 2012
This book has been following me around for decades. I first read it in my twenties -- maybe I would be 25 and not long married. I loved it. I thought it a near perfect little novel. That was well over thirty years ago.
It was first published in 1965. The Penguin version in which I read it (as pictured here) wasn't printed until 1978. So it first appeared, as did most of Newman's fiction, just after 1963, when according to Philip Larkin, sex was first invented.
I went on to read nearly everything else Andrea Newman wrote. They were all strongly readable, if pulpy. But nothing, for me, came close to Mirage, with its incredibly simple and circular plot (a vicious circle) and its brief and often painful little chapters.
I lent it to someone who never gave it back. How OFTEN has this happened to me in life??? Anyway, I didn't worry. I knew I'd pick up another copy. I used to glance idly at the new Andrea Newman shelves in new bookshops -- never once did I see Mirage.
In second hand bookshops, there are often (in the UK, at least) a string of Andrea Newman novels (A Bouquet of Barbed Wire, which was controversial and televised, was printed to death). She turned into a sort of specialist on sex in fiction, strong and seamy, and so she was well read.
However, not once have I seen a secondhand copy of Mirage.
Odd things stuck in my mind from it all my life -- like the way the young lovers had few luxuries, for example, but still "Coffee was their main extravagance. They consumed at least one pound of it each week and this did a sizeable injury to their budget." When I was young and newly married, we had very little money -- but I used to buy about half a pound of coffee beans a week and grind them -- and somehow that bound me to this book. Jane, the girl at the heart of the book, was like me (though she is not like me).
I assumed the brevity of the novel, the readability of the style, the famousness of the author -- all these things would turn this one into a minor classic. I was wrong. It got lost. Even now, searching for it on GoodReads, it comes up with no cover picture, though the one I have in my hand is as familiar as it ever was. Something suddenly sent me to look for it on Amazon, where I found only two or three second hand copies listed, and of course I bought one.
Then I looked at some of the comments on GoodReads. The first reviewer, Lara, who is the only one with anything to say, comments thus -- "A well-trodden theme, but Jane's limp lettuce personality makes it impossible to empathise. The ending is unsurprising if unsettling." Limp lettuce personality, eh?
I decided it must be one of those books I had underrated in my youth. When I re-read it, it would be a huge disappointment.
Then the book came.
It was not a disappointment and, to me, Jane is no limp lettuce. Jane is extremely interesting. Perhaps people have forgotten what it was like to be young then, in England, with parents like Jane's. I haven't. But in any case, Jane isn't even typical -- first she lives with her Italian lover, Dino, who is a young actor -- "living in sin" they used to call it, and then she marries him. But she doesn't want to have a baby. She pretends she does, but she doesn't want one. That's not limp lettuce. That's different. Jane was adopted. Her adoptive mother apparently couldn't bear children. But then it turns out that Jane can't either -- at least she miscarries twice.
That's only one of her problems.
The other is the fact that her young husband, Dino, is sexually talented. He loves her too -- he really does -- but he has a natural gift for sex, and soon it extends to other women. And THAT becomes the central issue. Their sex life is happy and rich; but only because of Dino's special gift. This isn't an idea that's trivialised or mocked in the book. They are in love.
I did not find the end predictable. Perhaps I just don't see things coming like other people. I found the end a sharp little twist, and I have never forgotten that feeling of irony and surprise, and pain. Re-reading now, it worked for me all over again, just like the first time around.
I think this is a good book. If I had to study one of Andrea Newman's novels, this is the only one I would want to scrutinise. It is not too ambitious. There is something true about it -- and the moral issues are something to talk about. I am not sure Dino's character is as believable as Jane's, but even for him, I felt there was an unusual level of understanding, a level of intuitive warmth.
Now I will go and scan the cover, and see if I can get a picture up there. I am relieved and delighted to find this novel has stayed with me for the best of reasons -- because it is well-conceived, well-written and different.
But I don't think I will be lending it out....
It was first published in 1965. The Penguin version in which I read it (as pictured here) wasn't printed until 1978. So it first appeared, as did most of Newman's fiction, just after 1963, when according to Philip Larkin, sex was first invented.
I went on to read nearly everything else Andrea Newman wrote. They were all strongly readable, if pulpy. But nothing, for me, came close to Mirage, with its incredibly simple and circular plot (a vicious circle) and its brief and often painful little chapters.
I lent it to someone who never gave it back. How OFTEN has this happened to me in life??? Anyway, I didn't worry. I knew I'd pick up another copy. I used to glance idly at the new Andrea Newman shelves in new bookshops -- never once did I see Mirage.
In second hand bookshops, there are often (in the UK, at least) a string of Andrea Newman novels (A Bouquet of Barbed Wire, which was controversial and televised, was printed to death). She turned into a sort of specialist on sex in fiction, strong and seamy, and so she was well read.
However, not once have I seen a secondhand copy of Mirage.
Odd things stuck in my mind from it all my life -- like the way the young lovers had few luxuries, for example, but still "Coffee was their main extravagance. They consumed at least one pound of it each week and this did a sizeable injury to their budget." When I was young and newly married, we had very little money -- but I used to buy about half a pound of coffee beans a week and grind them -- and somehow that bound me to this book. Jane, the girl at the heart of the book, was like me (though she is not like me).
I assumed the brevity of the novel, the readability of the style, the famousness of the author -- all these things would turn this one into a minor classic. I was wrong. It got lost. Even now, searching for it on GoodReads, it comes up with no cover picture, though the one I have in my hand is as familiar as it ever was. Something suddenly sent me to look for it on Amazon, where I found only two or three second hand copies listed, and of course I bought one.
Then I looked at some of the comments on GoodReads. The first reviewer, Lara, who is the only one with anything to say, comments thus -- "A well-trodden theme, but Jane's limp lettuce personality makes it impossible to empathise. The ending is unsurprising if unsettling." Limp lettuce personality, eh?
I decided it must be one of those books I had underrated in my youth. When I re-read it, it would be a huge disappointment.
Then the book came.
It was not a disappointment and, to me, Jane is no limp lettuce. Jane is extremely interesting. Perhaps people have forgotten what it was like to be young then, in England, with parents like Jane's. I haven't. But in any case, Jane isn't even typical -- first she lives with her Italian lover, Dino, who is a young actor -- "living in sin" they used to call it, and then she marries him. But she doesn't want to have a baby. She pretends she does, but she doesn't want one. That's not limp lettuce. That's different. Jane was adopted. Her adoptive mother apparently couldn't bear children. But then it turns out that Jane can't either -- at least she miscarries twice.
That's only one of her problems.
The other is the fact that her young husband, Dino, is sexually talented. He loves her too -- he really does -- but he has a natural gift for sex, and soon it extends to other women. And THAT becomes the central issue. Their sex life is happy and rich; but only because of Dino's special gift. This isn't an idea that's trivialised or mocked in the book. They are in love.
I did not find the end predictable. Perhaps I just don't see things coming like other people. I found the end a sharp little twist, and I have never forgotten that feeling of irony and surprise, and pain. Re-reading now, it worked for me all over again, just like the first time around.
I think this is a good book. If I had to study one of Andrea Newman's novels, this is the only one I would want to scrutinise. It is not too ambitious. There is something true about it -- and the moral issues are something to talk about. I am not sure Dino's character is as believable as Jane's, but even for him, I felt there was an unusual level of understanding, a level of intuitive warmth.
Now I will go and scan the cover, and see if I can get a picture up there. I am relieved and delighted to find this novel has stayed with me for the best of reasons -- because it is well-conceived, well-written and different.
But I don't think I will be lending it out....
June 22, 2018
I liked this lots better than her more famous Bouquet of Barbed Wire. If you like a bleak glum disenchanted read - and I do - and view romantic love as overrated, one of the horrors this world inflicts upon us... this is the Andrea Newman for you.
November 9, 2011
First published in 1965. A young woman finds her husband's infidelities intolerable, but life on her own meaningless. A well-trodden theme, but Jane's limp lettuce personality makes it impossible to empathise. The ending is unsurprising if unsettling.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews