Exposure
Books / Hardcover
ISBN: 0679409424 / Publisher: Random House, February 1993
Psychological patterns of the past threaten to destroy the present in a story about a young woman who appears to be capable and successful but who actually is caught in a secret, self-destructive cycle
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In this spellbinding, brilliantly written novel of psychological suspense, a young woman's self-destructive double life is exposed - and acclaimed author Kathryn Harrison's remarkable talents as a novelist are confirmed.Ann Rogers appears to be an attractive, successful young woman. A talented photographer, she creates happy memories for others - videotaping weddings, splicing together scenes of smiling faces, editing out the awkward moments. But she cannot edit her own memories so easily - images of a childhood career as her father's model and muse, the subject of his celebrated series of controversial photographs. And so Ann escapes into a secret life: She hides in the bathroom, takes speed, and shoplifts.In razor-sharp prose - The New York Times described her writing as "hallucinatory, poetic" - Kathryn Harrison shows how patterns of exploitation in the past form a psychological trap for Ann, a trap that closes tighter and tighter, until it finally threatens to destroy her. When the Museum of Modern Art announces a retrospective of her father's disturbing portraits, Ann's carefully controlled balance on the edge of self-destruction slips.Like Thicker Than Water, Kathryn Harrison's previous novel, Exposure illuminates how a desperate struggle for identity, for self, and for self-respect can go under the surface of what seems like a successful life. And like Thicker Than Water, Exposure is sure to be praised as "beautifully written, unsparingly honest" (The New York Times Book Review) and "devastating...remarkable" (The New York Times).
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