Infrared
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
By the author of Fault Lines—shortlisted for the Orange Prize and winner of the Prix Femina.
After a childhood marked by pain, Rena Greenblatt has found the strength to build a successful career as a photographer. Like the ultrasensitive infrared film she uses, Rena sees what others don’t see, and finds a form of love. By photographing men’s bodies, she hopes to glimpse their souls.
Away from her lover, and stuck in Florence with her infuriating stepmother and her aging, unwell father, Rena confronts not only the masterpieces of the Renaissance but the banal inconveniences of a family holiday. At the same time, she finds herself travelling into dark and passionate memories that will lead to disturbing revelations.
With exceptional flair and talent, Nancy Huston explores the links between family intimacies and our collective lives. In the spirit of her bestselling novel, Fault Lines, Infrared is a story about how our childhood and culture affect our sexuality.
‘Huston succeeds in exploring the darkest of subjects with a lightness of touch.’ Sydney Morning Herald
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Huston's exceptional new novel (after the Prix Femina Award winning Fault Lines) chronicles a weeklong Italian trip taken by photographer Rena Greenblatt to celebrate her father's 70th birthday. Trouble brews early when two teenagers are electrocuted near Rena's home in Paris, sparking riots, and Rena's lover/colleague urges her to come back to document the chaos. As Rena gets lost in an internal conversation with her imaginary sister, Huston expertly navigates past and present, taking us into vivid recollections of Rena's absent lawyer mother, who killed herself; the secret alliances Rena shared with her scientist father, a one-time radical who didn't live up to his potential; her complicated relationship with her older brother; her somewhat dim stepmother, Ingrid; her many affairs; and how all of it made her who she is. Huston makes her protagonist likable despite her irksome quirks: she's short with her guileless stepmother, indignant and quick to start arguments with anyone who disagrees with her; in short, Rena feels truly real, which makes the novel's abrupt ending all the more disappointing.
