The Photograph, Penelope Lively

Most of us probably have a few photographs in our possession – those of us with old friends or people from our lives before we met our current partner. These are usually harmless mementoes.

In The Photograph, Penelope Lively makes something totally different and threatening of the photo that Glyn finds in an envelope after Kath’s death. Her writing says ‘Don’t open – Destroy’. What would you do? Glyn, of course, opens it.

The photograph takes him on a search into the past and involves more relationships than his. What about the man whose hand Kath was holding, Nick, – and his wife, Kath’s older sister, Elaine? What was going on?

Not only Glyn but also Elaine, and Polly, Nick and Elaine’s daughter, become involved in the destructive search into the past. Their lives are disrupted. They finally arrive at the cottage of Mary Packard, Kath’s true friend. For all of them, and for us, Mary holds the key to this gripping mystery.

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