Book
Sweet Caress
Born in 1908, Amory Clay discovers photography through her uncle and turns the camera into a passport through the twentieth century. Her career begins with society portraits in London before curiosity takes her to late-1920s Berlin and 1930s New York. Returning to Britain, she photographs political unrest and is badly injured during a confrontation with Blackshirt supporters.
War expands the scale of Amory’s work. She photographs the Second World War in Europe, then later returns to conflict reporting in Vietnam while marriages, motherhood and personal losses reshape her ambitions. Told through memoir, diary and photographs, the novel follows a woman repeatedly placing herself close to history in order to record it, even when the act of looking cannot protect her from what she sees.
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