Infrared
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Rena, a twice-married photographer who specializes in infrared techniques, travels to Tuscany with her father and his second wife. As the trip progresses, in an internal dialogue with her mental double, Rena submits her past to exposure. Using dark room techniques she reevaluates her explosive sexual coming of age, her relationships with her father and various lovers. An audacious woman, who tests the limits of freedom at every point in her life, in Rena’s parallel journeys Huston has created a powerful work of fiction and presented an in depth analysis of the relations between men and women.
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.
