cover image Woman in the Picture

Woman in the Picture

Viki Wright. Viking Books, $19.95 (407pp) ISBN 978-0-670-82215-7

Thirty-four-year-old Rosemary Quilty sees her marriage abruptly, publicly destroyed when her husband's mistress creates a drunken scene at their 16th wedding anniversary celebrated in their home in a ""genteel upper middleclass'' Sydney suburb. Wright's first novel convincingly describes with close psychological observation Rosemary's subsequent ordeal and blossoming as, feeling ``like a half-made sculpture, casually abandoned,'' she must contend with life as a single parent and cope with a roller coaster of good and ill fortune, much of which is set in motion by ruthless financial magnate Robert Talbot, who takes a puzzling interest in her. Rosemary finds herself growing into a feisty, assertive woman who realizes she has outgrown her ex-husband, is attractive to men and can succeed in the glamorous but tough world of television. Despite the exoticism of the Australian setting and some awkward overwriting at the beginning, the characters are nicely rounded and humanized with the aid of convincing dialogue. When all loose ends are tied at the end, in spite of her essential ordinariness the reader is sorry to leave Rosemary Quilty. (June)