Camera Obscura

Annie's camera reveals secrets of the self which otherwise remain hidden even to herself. When she is called back to her native town by the sea for a photographic record of a mother who has killed her infant, Annie finds herself haunted by her past as well as by a series of infanticides. This disturbingly noir novel explores issues affecting successful single career women who have had troubling relationships with their own mothers and with one another and with their own fertility. Phantoms invade the narrating Annie's mind and readers are left with a riddling conclusion. Vallorani's writing is a balancing act on the edge of the unreal.