Michael Hartford

Photography was entirely different. Even when the models were largely uncooperative–Isabelle thinks of Tess and of her cousin’s children–the poses were short enough in duration that the subjects retained their energy. This energy helped to make the photograph happen, to keep it faithful to the living things it portrayed. She could control how this energy was used. Isabelle could control her models. She told them what to do and they followed her instruction. She could even control the light around them. Unlike painting, she wasn’t merely recording what was there but creating what was there.

Afterimage by Helen Humphreys

A tense and sublimated triangle is at the heart of “Afterimage“: Isabelle, the reluctant lady who is a pioneer in photography and wants to be respected for her work rather her station; her husband Eldon, a sickly man who never got to be an explorer and who works out his disappointments in the making of maps; and Annie Phelan, the Irish maid who disturbs an already chaotic household with her quiet beauty and intelligence. Disappointment and longing suffuse this novel, each actor trapped in the static nexus of class and stifled by circumstance.

“Afterimage” is based loosely on Julia Margaret Cameron, the Victorian photographer who dressed hers taff in homemade costumes and staged tableaux from King Arthur and Shakespeare. Photography was still new, and not quite accepted as a medium for art; Cameron’s photographs echo pre-Raphaelite painting, but have a special magic and luminosity of their own. As the Cameron figure, Isabelle Dashell is a driven, selfish, caustic character who thinks nothing of locking a little boy in a cupboard to elicit “a look of gentle despair.” At her core, though, is deep despair and loss: three pregnancies ave ended in stillbirths, her marriage to Eldon lacks any warmth or respect, and she is haunted by the memory of Ellen, a servants’ daughter and childhood friend whom Isabelle has lost to the rigid class system.

Annie, too, has lost much in her short life: an orphan of the Irish Famine, she has been raised to service, never able to imagine any life but that of a maid. She is smart, though, and hungry for books; on arriving at the Dashells’ home, “Jane Eyre” is her touchstone, but she begins to raid Eldon’s library at night to escape her nightmares about losing her family. Isabelle finds Annie a pliant and expressive model, and at times seems on the verge of making her a photographic protogé, going so far as to have Annie compose a portrait of Isabelle as Sappho. There is a tension between them that is almost romantic, but irresolvable.

Eldon, meanwhile, is drawn to Annie’s intelligence, and touched by her history. He shows her maps of Ireland, and enlists her in his fantasies about arctic exploration. Longing colors Eldon’s relationship with Annie, too, but despite his professions of egalitarianism he can’t in the end see past Annie’s class status.

“Afterimage” vividly brings a certain kind of liberal Victorianism to life. The Dashells are at the very least irreligious if not atheist, and less absorbed with status than their peers. Their ramshackle house is far from ostentatious, and they often slip into almost familiar terms with their staff. At last, though, they are creatures of privelege, unable to overcome their contradictions.

Helen Humphreys has chosen to write “Afterimage” in the present tense, with a point of view that flits from character to character. This gives the novel immediacy and intimacy, but can sometimes be distracting. We really don’t, for example, need to climb inside the head of Tess, the laundry maid and relatively minor character, and there are times when it would have been more effective to see Isabelle from the outside than to hear her thoughts. Still, “Afterimage” is a strong and engaging novel, filled with language that will haunt the reader much like Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs do.