"Afterimage"

I am grateful to my friend S. for her recommendation of Canadian writer Helen Humphreys' novel "Afterimage" (Metropolitan Books, 2000), which I have just finished reading. This book is "inspired by the life of Julia Margaret Cameron," the famed photographer, and takes place in 1865. A young maid, Annie Phelan, goes to work for a photographer, Isabelle Dashell, and her mapmaker/would-be explorer husband, Eldon Dashell. Both are much taken with Annie, who is intelligent and well-read as well as beautiful and unspoiled. A great line about Annie's love of books is the following: "that feeling of story rushes through her like a swoon" (p. 32). Isabelle uses Annie as her best model for her photographs, and Eldon shares his thwarted but lingering dreams about Arctic exploration with her. Annie's presence both inspires and unsettles the Dashells, and tragic events unfold. This book shows us much about social class, as well as about what it was like to be a woman, especially a talented but underrated woman artist, at that time. The loneliness and lack of support that Isabelle receives, even from her own husband, are sad to read about. A fellow (male) artist, for example, pontificates that Isabelle's work should be "more domestic" (p. 22). But the novel also shows us how transformative art can be. The main pleasure of this novel, finally, is the gorgeous, evocative, sometimes dreamlike writing.