Five Photos of My Wife - Softcover

Desarthe, Agnès

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007100922 ISBN 13: 9780007100927

Publisher: Flamingo, 2001

Synopsis

The English debut of a bestselling novelist, kin to Penelope Fitzgerald and Louis Begley in style and subtlety.

At eighty, Max Opass is still reeling from the death of his wife a year earlier. His two grown-up children live abroad with their own families, his son in Bolivia, his daughter in Japan: he writes awkwardly to his daughter with the news of his humdrum activities and tells her that he’s decided to have his wife’s portrait committed to paper or canvas, permanently and posthumously. So, he looks up ‘Artists’ in the Yellow Pages, picks a few for arbitrary reasons, and calls them up. He asks each if they will paint a portrait of his wife, using his five favourite photographs of her for their sole visual reference. One artist – successful and modish – intimidates him; another – an amateur raising kids by herself – prompts him to pity; a pair of art students baffle him; and a bridge-playing acquaintance turns out to have elderly hots for him. Each encounter, each portrait, is both comic and moving, like Max. As these accumulate, the reader comes to realise that Max’s grasp on who his wife really was is not so sure after all. Nor indeed is he a star of self-knowledge. Through a sequence of droll confrontations, his and our understanding expand, and by the end of the book he finds his priorities and intentions have altered utterly. And the reader is brought, quietly and slyly, to an appreciation of loss, memory, love and the uselessness of false images. The book oscillates calmly between being amusing and being reflective, and delivers a powerful slow punch at its close.

Agnès Desarthe began her writing life as a children’s writer, and it shows here: as in Gretta Mulrooney’s ‘Araby’, not a word is wasted and the pace is even and sure. In its sympathetic but unsentimental portrayal of a deluded old man, the book is reminiscent of Louis Begley’s work. And in her dry wit, exquisite ear for conversation and reverberating sense of more being meant than at first seems apparent, there are echoes of Penelope Fitzgerald or Hilary Mantel.

About this title

Review

‘Desarthe is a daring and imaginative writer. Through Max Opass, she lets her lucid prose plunder dreams and question the meaning of existence.’
Observer

‘A rare tribute to the love of a wife... Desarthe’s novel, lucidly translated by Adriana Hunter, is delicate, subtle and full of charm.’
Daily Mail

‘Ageing and frailty, both physical and emotinal, are rarely presented with such sheer beauty. Five Photos of My Wife has a limpid, effortless elegance: prose by Chanel.’
Scotland on Sunday

From the Publisher

Five Photos of My Wife, the first of Agnes Desarthe's books to be translated into English, has been shortlisted for both the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2002 and the Jewish Quarterly Fiction Prize 2002.

About this edition

• Publisher: Flamingo
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0007100922
• ISBN 13: 9780007100927
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176