Quite unlike her fair stepsisters, Lizzie is dark and secretive: 'Just like your father' says her mother. But what was her father like? Photos of him are hidden away; snatches of overheard conversation between her mother and her stepfather deepen the mystery. Only her best friend Savannah – also abandoned by her father when she was a baby – knows what it feels like to wonder, to try and piece together an earlier story. But when events propel Lizzie alone to London she stops wondering and starts searching...Beautifully evoking the ache of childhood loss, the scrappy joys of chaotic families, and the hurt and relief of understanding, OUT OF THE PICTURE reveals Polly Samson's talent for laying bare the uncomfortable truths that lie just under the skin – in every family, in every secret.
"Insight, humour and wry sympathy...a compelling and moving exploration of the way secrets
and lies can breed obsession"
The Sunday Times
"An elegant, well-written page turner...a
crisp, unsentimentally poignant stare into the heart of abandonment
and loneliness"
Ruth Padel, Daily Mail
"I read it cover to cover in an evening, unable to leave it for long. Samson has an acid touch with prose, burning
through to the core of a situation with a clause, a mere phrase...With Out of the Picture, Samson has earned
herself a place on people's shelves next to Raffaella Barker, Esther Freud and Barbara Trapido"
Maggie O'Farrell, Independent on Sunday
"She pinpoints the telling detail in character or landscape and brings her prose to life with
evocative scents and colours"
Shena McKay, Daily Telegraph
"Wry, bittersweet and tender"
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