Sweet Caress

This rich mix of fiction and history features photographer Amory Clay. Narrator Susan Lyons convincingly embodies Amory as she recounts her story, which is interwoven with historic moments of the twentieth century. Lyons's perfect narration allows events and their significance to unfold smoothly and ensures that the time shifts remain clear. She voices the upper-class Amory and the expansive cast of other characters with the subtle use of accent and tone to differentiate the key players. Her treatment highlights the complexities of Amory's character, as well as her humanity, which invites the listener's empathy. Listeners are drawn in as they wonder where fact ends and fiction begins. K.J.P. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

July 20, 2015
Throughout his career, and especially in his masterly Every Human Heart, Boyd has excelled in depicting the life of a talented artist who suffers more failures than triumphs yet generates significant art. Here he has invented a spunky heroine named Amory Clay, born in Britain in 1908, educated at a boarding school, and determined to become a professional photographer. Amory is restless, rash, impulsive—and way ahead of her time. Her job as a society photographer ends in scandal, as does her next adventure in decadent prewar Berlin, where she infiltrates secret sex clubs and snaps the debauched antics there. Another scandal ensues when her photos are confiscated as pornographic and she is arrested for obscenity. (In a nice touch, Boyd scatters 70 snapshots throughout the novel as examples of Amory’s work.) A dashing lover brings her to the U.S. for magazine assignments; another lover appears, and she begins a second relationship. WWII is the crucible in which Amory finds her true calling as a war photographer. In Germany she meets army officer Sholto Farr, a Scottish aristocrat, whom she later marries, but soon she is unmoored once more. In addition to the psychologically rich characterization, a wealth of atmospheric details—what the characters wear, the brands of cigarettes they smoke, and the whisky they knock back—add depth, immediacy, and authenticity to an engrossing, moving story of Amory’s turns of fortune.