Her Living Image

by Jane Rogers

What happens when your husband falls in love with the woman you might have become?

Eighteen-year-old Carolyn Tanner lies in a hospital bed. Recovering from an accident, she imagines herself returning to her parents' home, marrying her childhood sweetheart and becoming a mother. Instead, she joins a women's cooperative and becomes a landscape architect. But as her dream and her real life entangle, she must search to find her true self.

Genres: Fiction

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Jane Rogers is an award winning author of nine novels, including The Testament of Jessie Lamb, Man-Booker longlisted and winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award 2012.

Other works include Mr Wroe's Virgins (which she dramatised for the BAFTA-nominated BBC drama series), Her Living Image (Somerset Maugham Award) and Promised Lands (Writers Guild Best Fiction Award). Her story collection Hitting Trees with Sticks was shortlisted for the 2013 Edgehill Award, and the title story was a BBC National Short story award winner.

Jane is Emerita Professor of Writing and also writes radio dramas and adaptations. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and lives in Banbury, UK.

www.janerogers.info

Reviews

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a re read of a copy I own. I must have read it about 30 years ago so only vaguely remembered the story. It’s a fascinating premise of one person’s imagined alternative life becoming real. It’s not believable of course, but absorbing none the less. I found the ending unsatisfying though.

[Adrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a strange little novel. It explores what can happen to a person’s life at the crossroads of fate. If they’d stayed at school later, ran a little faster or slower on the way home, looked both ways before crossing the street. What happens if the life you imagine while your laying in your hospital bed - where you didn’t do any or all of the above - what happens if that life actually begins being lived?
I should mention that this is also a confusing novel, if you try to think about it too deeply.
The main character - Carolyn in the imaginary world and Caro in the life actually lived - isn’t really redeemable in either version of her life. In one she’s a repressed housewife who lets her husband walk all over her and who keeps getting pregnant not so much because she wants children, but because she’s afraid to be a person on her own as her kids age. In the other, while she’s a much stronger person, she lacks the moral values to see what’s wrong with being a mistress to a married man. I read this from my personal worldview though, of course, so maybe Caro is supposed to be the idealized character in this story.
But the only major male character in the novel Alan - is definitely irredeemable. An inattentive - and sometimes borderline abusive - husband, a never-there father, a drunkard and a cheat.
The confusion comes in when Alan - Carolyn’s husband - meets and has an affair with Caro. Something that obviously shouldn’t happen.
But despite the converging of true and fake realities, despite the confusion and the irredeemable traits of the characters - I couldn’t help but like this novel. In the end I could see hope in both Carolyn and Caro - and possibly even a future as a non-asshole for Alan. While not truly redeemed in the book, maybe they would have been in the future. I also happen to like a little oddity in the books I read, so the impossibility of it all was something I could get beyond.
And the language of the book itself is just gorgeous. At some points the writing is more poetry than prose, and those moments are worth reading the book for themselves.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

After having picked up "Island" and loving it, I certainly thought I'd try a few more Jane Rogers titles. "Her Living Image" is one of her first (if not the first) published titles and it feels very dated. The use of language really made it a bit hard to get into, the sentence structure didn't flawlessly flow. Nevertheless I soldiered on because the concept really intrigued me. Carolyn gets hit by a postal van on her way home one day and whilst in the hospital recovering from both physical injuries and a bit of depression she starts to imagine what her life would be if. If she was a second later, if she had have gone to the shops on her way home, if it wasn't raining, etc etc. The whole book is a bit of a Sliding Doors (the movie) storyline following both lives. It does get pretty interesting when Carolyn's (the non-injured life) boyfriend/husband runs into Caro (the injured) leaving me wondering how (and more importantly I thought, why didn't Caro know him since they were dating in high school but let's leave that up to literary license).

An interesting tale but like I said, the language was a bit tedious.

[Sarah Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to re read this after reading Life after Life by kate atkinson
they are both novels about what if you could live you life again only differently. what if a split second decision or event had or had not happened. This is clever too because the character meets the other version of herself.
just as good the second time round.

[Tamara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange story, intriguing concepts, and what is probably a very clear picture of a particular time in social history. I learned a lot about feminism from this book - more than any textbook could teach.

[Donna]

Beautifully written. The author wove an unusual premise and the story held my interest to the end. I recommend it.

[Regina Candel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gustó mucho el libro, los personajes y las opciones de vida posibles que se nos plantean en la vida misma...el final me decepcionó un poco...