The Photographer's Wife

December 14, 2015
Bestseller Joinson’s second novel (after A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar) explores another distant locale, this time Jerusalem in the 1920s. The story is seen through the eyes of 11-year-old Prue Ashton, whose father is a British architect in the holy city to redesign it, and from the point of view of British pilot William Harrington, hired by Prue’s father to assist Eleanora Rasul—the photographer’s wife of the title—in getting aerial shots of the city. As in her first book, there are two main story lines here: Prue’s life in Jerusalem in the 1920s on the one hand, which includes the provocative relationship between William and Eleanora, and on the other, the life the grown-up Prudence leads as an artist in Shoreham, a small British coastal town, in 1937. Readers see Prue both as an essentially abandoned young girl in Jerusalem, and the bold artist she becomes, fleeing her philandering husband in London and brazenly living with her lover and small son in Shoreham. Joinson’s compelling prose reveals the horrors young Prue experiences while living in the unsettled Middle East, showing how it will haunt her as an adult when Harrington comes back into her life in Shoreham.

September 15, 2015

Joinson follows up her gorgeous A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar with a story opening in 1920s Jerusalem, where civic adviser Charles Ashton's plan to dump the minarets for English parks stirs trouble and Englishwoman Eleanora falls for pilot William Harrington, brought in by Ashton to provide aerial photographs of the city. Originally scheduled for June 2015.

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January 1, 2015

Joinson follows up A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, a gorgeously written debut linking women over time, with a new book that sounds of a piece. Under British mandate, Jerusalem in the 1920s comfortably embraces British colonials, Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, and Jews, but civic adviser Charles Ashton's plan to dump the minarets for English parks will certainly stir trouble. Englishwoman Eleanora falls for pilot William Harrington, who is brought in by Ashton to provide aerial photographs of the city and years later offers startling revelations to Ashton's daughter Prue.

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Starred review from November 15, 2015
In Joinson's second exploration of British misadventures abroad (A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, 2012), a lonely 11-year-old in 1920 Jerusalem witnesses and inadvertently participates in adult intrigues, both political and personal, which haunt her later life as a troubled artist. After her mother's commitment to an asylum, Prue is living at Jerusalem's Hotel Fast with her father, Charles, an architect planning a system of English-style gardens for the city. Ignored by Charles, Prue attaches herself to Eleanora, the young British wife of Arab photographer Khaled Rasul, and to Ihsan, who's been hired to teach Prue Arabic. Encouraged by Ihsan, Prue spies on the adults around her, often misconstruing events and relationships, especially after the arrival of the emotionally damaged British Word War I pilot William, whom Eleanora knew in England. As the arrogant British powers that be reluctantly try to confront an officer running amok killing locals, Prue finds herself in the middle of horrendous violence. Interwoven with Prue's childhood is the story of her life as an artist and mother back in England. In 1937, Prue has left her foppish British husband, Piers, and lives in Shoreham with her small son, Skip; she's preparing a show of her sculpture when William pays her a visit. A moving, disturbed, and disturbing character in his own right, William tells Prue that Ihsan has died and asks for an envelope Ihsan left with her on a visit to England in 1933. While Joinson layers on a John le Carre-lite plot involving British intelligence, what matters are the memories that flood back for Prue, showing how the demons from her childhood have contributed to both her creativity and her difficulties as a wife and mother. While Prue and William have dark pasts, Joinson wisely allows for degrees of redemption and growth in each. Atmospheric, romantic, yet refreshingly acerbic--Joinson's timely portrayal of the difficult relationships between different cultures is rivaled by her heartbreaking delineation of the fragile relationships between individuals.

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Starred review from December 1, 2015

In 1920 Jerusalem, Prue Ashton arrives from England to stay with her architect father after her mother is hospitalized owing to a mental breakdown. Once there, she is mostly left to her own devices. A lonely 11-year-old child, Prue is easily befriended by a local, who persuades her to observe her father and his associates and gather intelligence about his plans for the redevelopment of Palestine. Traveling alone by train one day, Prue encounters Willie Harrington, a World War I pilot who has been hired by her father to take aerial photographs that will facilitate his design plans for the region. Harrington's ulterior motive for accepting the post is his wish to reconnect with his childhood friend, Eleanora, and free her from what he sees as an unsuitable marriage to an Arab photographer. Seventeen years later, with a new global conflict looming, Prue is living with her young son in Shoreham, England, when she is approached by Willie, who is desperate to recover the damning photographic evidence of their time in Palestine. VERDICT As she did so beguilingly in A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, Joinson again creates an atmospheric story that races toward a tense conclusion. This is historical fiction at its most pleasurable. [See Prepub Alert, 8/24/15.]--Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

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