Picture Palace [Hardcover]

Paul Theroux (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1978

World-famous photographer Maude Coffin Pratt has pointed her lens at the beautiful, obscure, and obscene, and at the private places and public parts of the famous, from Gertrude Stein to Graham Greene. When the seventy-year-old Maude rummages through her archives in preparation for a triumphant retrospective, the resurrected images unleash a flood of suppressed memories -- of her extraordinary life, her celebrated subjects, and the dark, painful secret at the core of her existence.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Theroux is the bestselling author of more than twenty books. He divides his time between Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Hawaii. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 359 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; First Trade edition (May 1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395264758
• ISBN-13: 978-0395264751
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,247,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Theroux's highly acclaimed novels include Blinding Light, Hotel Honolulu, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, and The Mosquito Coast. His renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Dark Star Safari, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, and The Happy Isles of Oceania. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Story of Love, Photography, and Cape Cod, July 13, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Picture Palace (Paperback)

This is one of my favorite books. Whereas Theroux often has a hard time depicting love convincingly and sometimes doesn't even try, I found the unrequited love between brother and sister in this book to be fierce and intensely tragic. The historical backdrop of the development of photography is brilliantly conceived and realized, as is the ongoing dialogue of the old woman, retired, reliving her past on Cape Cod. In many ways uncharacteristic of Theroux's brash, egocentric style, this book uses a strong feminine voice that evokes a very unforgettable personality. Good fun to read

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very strange book, September 29, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Picture Palace (Paperback)

The premise for this novel resides in the main character's desire to bed her brother. Her desire for him motivates her life and thinking; her brilliant career in photography serves only as a means to gain his respect and um, affection. Sadly, the other sister wins the brother's favors. Our heroine avoids a complete breakdown but does contract hysterical blindness when she learns the awful truth. Theroux sets up a Conradesque narrative framework, and the female narrator often launches into some turgid prose detailing the passionate vagaries of her inner life. What struck me was the incestual motivation for her great work so admired by others. A commentary on the creation of art, its basis not necessarily as pure as we'd like to imagine?

A brilliant novel in many respects, I only subtract a star due to the (in my opinion, of course) overblown nature of some of Maude's rantings. Perhaps that was part of the point -- her visceral passion.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Shame It's Out-of-Print, February 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Picture Palace (Paperback)

Though I doubt it will be for long. This is quite possibly Theroux's most ambitious project in straight *fiction*, and it's extremely well-written and well-crafted. The "voice" of the elderly female narrator is at times just a bit unconvincing, but as a novelist, Theroux isn't at all what one might think from his numerous "travel" books--this is riveting and almost shocking, and quite vivid.

Finally, Theroux is one of those few novelists (Iris Murdoch and Robertson Davies come to mind) who seamlessly weaves a large amount of knowledge, history and culture into his narratives. In its way, this is also one of the finest books on photography ever written. I encourage you to find a copy--there's something here for those who like literary fiction, vivid description and...an excellent story.