24 November 2003
Black Mirror
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by Gail Jones
Reader: Pippa Williamson
Victoria Morrell was once a great artist. She now lives as a recluse in Hampstead, London. She is dying. Anna Griffin is the young woman commissioned to write a biography of Victoria's life. In many way their lives strangely intersect causing a compelling double narrative.
Transcript
This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.
Victoria led the high life - living and working in Paris in the 1930s, mixing with artists of the Surrealist movement. Her work, largely forgotten in the fifties and sixties, was rediscovered in the seventies when she became something of a cult figure in the London art scene.
Set in Europe and a West Australian mining town, the author tracks Victoria's past as it intertwines with Anna's life.
This elegant, enthralling and emotionally-charged novel is a story of love and family mystery and a meditation on the nature of artistic vision and obsession.
Black Mirror was awarded the 2002 WA Premier's Award for Fiction and is published in Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia
Sound engineer: Ian Manning
Abridged and directed by: Gillian Berry
Concludes Friday 19 December 2003
