Exposure - Hardcover

Stevenson, Talitha

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151011621 ISBN 13: 9780151011629

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005

Synopsis

Prominent lawyer Alistair Langford has worked hard to achieve his immense ambitions, but in the course of just one evening he recklessly destroys everything. The scandal threatens his marriage and exposes a secret he has hidden his entire adult life.

Meanwhile, his son Luke, who has led a privileged life but also has worked hard to achieve his own success, has fallen in love with a beautiful actress. When she suddenly leaves him, he plummets into a dangerous depression. His ideals in tatters, he seeks a kind of redemption by taking in two asylum seekers from Kosovo, whose struggles contrast starkly and poignantly with his own.

A deftly plotted, highly suspenseful, and astutely observed morality tale, Exposure explores the dangerous pleasure of offering charity, the effects of deceit and shame on a rigidly complacent family, and the nature of love among family and friends.

About this title

About the Author

TALITHA STEVENSON's first novel, An Empty Room, was short-listed for the Whitbread First Novel Award. She lives in London.

Reviews

Starred Review. Rich and psychologically astute, British author Stevenson's impressive second novel (after 2004's An Empty Room) refracts the life of an upper-middle-class English family—Alistair Langford, a prominent London lawyer; his devoted wife, Rosalind; and two grown children, Luke and Sophie—through the prism of a single, scandalous affair Alistair has with a witness in one of his cases. The event exposes the intricate web of lies that forms Alistair's life, in particular the flagrant denial of his middle-class past as he pursues success and respectability by virtue of his amazing intellect. The most intricate portrait is that of 28-year-old Luke, an advertising executive who embarks on a torrid affair with a high-strung, beautiful and self-absorbed actress, only to be emotionally devastated when she leaves him. Luke's increasingly desperate ploys to win her back are a key narrative arc, though the main story is Alistair's. A fine writer who paints her scenes with loving detail, Stevenson also depicts her characters' thoughts and insights with an acuity reminiscent of Ian McEwan's recent triumph, Saturday. The increasingly baroque plot threatens to overwhelm the novel, but this is nonetheless the work of a writer to be watched.
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Distinguished barrister Alistair Langford has never been one to throw caution to the winds. Since childhood, he has purposefully adhered to a rigid demeanor, setting about achieving his life's mission--the proper home, proper wife, proper career--with a quiet zealousness. How, then, does one explain Alistair's total abandonment of all these lofty ideals when he heedlessly has a sordid one-night stand with a defense witness in a high-profile case he's trying? The scandal, luridly exposed in Britain's infamous tabloid gossip rags, predictably destroys his career and endangers his marriage; and yet the disgrace is oddly liberating, even as it reveals shocking secrets about a past he'd worked so hard to renounce. Along with a complex subplot involving Alistair's ne'er-do-well son, whose own failed love affair sends him into paroxysms of grief and dreams of depraved retribution, Stevenson limns the depths of passion and privacy in a quietly tense cautionary tale that forces her peevish characters to cope with the fallout from their moral ambiguities. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151011621
• ISBN 13: 9780151011629
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 408