Description
I watched the day slip into night, noting the wondrous tonal transformations of the sunset on its dimmer switch, how blood-orange can shade imperceptibly into ice-blue on the knife-edge of the horizon, listening to the sea’s interminable call for silence – shh, shh, shh.
Amory Clay’s first memory is of her father doing a handstand – but it is his absences that she chiefly remembers.
Her Uncle Greville, a photographer, gives her both the affection she needs and a camera, which unleashes a passion that irrevocably shapes her future. She begins an apprenticeship with him in London, photographing socialites for magazines.
But Amory is hungry for more and her search for life, love and artistic expression will take her to the demi-monde of 1920s Berlin, New York in the 1930s, the Blackshirt riots in London, and France during the Second World War, where she becomes one of the first women war photographers.
In this enthralling story of a life fully lived, William Boyd has created a sweeping panorama of the twentieth century, told through the camera lens of one unforgettable woman.
‘It is an utterly compelling read and Boyd’s best novel since Restless’ – The Independent
A writer of subtlety, flare and depth William Boyd began his literary career with 1981’s A Good Man in Africa which won both the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Prize. He is best known for his espionage thriller Restless and the expansive drama Any Human Heart, both of which have been adapted for television.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781408867990
Number of pages: 464
Weight: 383 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
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