EXPOSURE by Kathryn Harrison

 This is an ancient trad paperback that I first completed on We 12/21/94 "on break in Belleville at the 'HiHo'. When I typed this today I had no idea where this place was, but I ran the address through Google Maps and it came back to me although this was not a place that I used to go to regularly. It's now closed. 

Finished this time on Fr 3/3/23

The book is about a female wedding photographer, Ann Rogers who is diabetic and she also uses methamphetamines. She is married and successful, but along with her other addictions she is a compulsive shoplifter. Her husband has a secret agreement with many retail stores that if his wife is spotted stealing, they are to let her do it and he will compensate the store. This is costing him thousands of dollars in fees and charges.

Ann Rogers father was a famous photographer and was known for his naked and salacious photos of his daughter, Ann. When he committed suicide Ann was permanently damaged. 

A dark and transgressive novel and it was an enjoyable read.

From the book's page at Publishers Weekly:

"Harrison's second novel (after Thicker Than Water ) is a mesmerizing depiction of a woman on the edge of emotional disintegration. Ann Rogers is a beautiful, chic, financially comfortable New Yorker with a career as a videographer of weddings and society functions, and a loving husband who restores landmark buildings. But Ann is addicted to speed, a drug which holds especially dangerous consequences for her, since she is a diabetic. Moreover, every time she does crystal meth, she compulsively shoplifts at Bergdorf's and Saks. Flashing back to Ann's Texas upbringing, Harrison gradually discloses the source of her deep neuroses. Her cold, monstrously selfish father extracted a bizarre kind of vengeance for her mother's death in childbirth. Edgar Rogers became famous for his photographs of a prepubescent and adolescent Ann, naked and assuming deathly poses. He committed suicide in 1979; now a retrospective of his work, including photos of Ann engaged in acts the memory of which she has tried to repress, is imminent at the MoMA. Demonstrating impressive control of the novel's structure and pacing, Harrison steadily deepens her sophisticated psychological portrait of Ann while elevating suspense and the reader's emotional involvement. The shocking circumstances of Ann's life become clear: she survived traumatic events by pathologically retreating into herself, but her subconscious erupts now and then in suicidal behavior. This unsparing picture of a woman spinning out of control is conveyed in luminous and tensile prose. The novel's larger theme, an indictment of a society ``which encourages exploitation even as it punishes all who chronicle it,'' is eerily prescient, calling to mind the current controversy over photographer Sally Mann's nude pictures of her children. Harrowing but spellbinding, the novel has the impact of an unforgettably vivid image seared on the eye." 

From GoodRead's:

"'EXPOSURE' is an excellent read, made all the more poignant now that the reader also knows about Harrison's own relationship with her father, and how far a girl will go to gain the affection from an emotionally or physically absent father that she craves."