The Photograph - Penelope Lively

The photograph of the title is one revealing an infidelity, found several years after the death of the unfaithful wife. The husband's quest to find the truth disrupts the lives of others who had been close to them, and each person is forced to confront new truths about the dead woman, reintegrate their memories of her, and rebuild remaining relationships. Two of the main characters' work is concerned with landscapes and gardens - uncovering their pasts or constructing and assessing their beauty, and there is some interesting material about our relationships with time and place here alongside the more central themes of the fallibility of memory and perception, and how our knowledge of each other can never be more than partial. Although the journey is an unsettling one for the characters involved, this is written in Lively's usual calm and gentle style, and so provides a soothing and comforting experience for the reader.