A heady romp in Rome, as film actress Annabel Christopher lets the rush of her public image go to her head when faced with a betrayal that only Spark can write convincingly. As is always the case with Spark, despite the short length of The Public Image, there’s a lot packed in here, and the narcissistic portrait of Annabel is as sympathetic and believable—despite some characteristic shenanigans, expected of Spark—as only the author of the flip side of life, the dark shadow of people, can execute. ( )

Although she doesn't seem to have any outstanding acting talent, Annabel has been successfully marketed by a famous Italian film-director and his clever press secretary as "the English lady-tiger" (a demure exterior supposedly concealing unseen reserves of frightening sexual energy), and she is well on her way to mainstream stardom as a result. Her husband, Christopher, a failed actor and scriptwriter, is made to appear in the background of all the PR photos as the devoted helpmeet - a role imposed on him by press secretary Francesca as poetic justice for his wandering hands.

Eventually, just as Annabel is moving herself and her baby son into a lovely new Roman apartment, Christopher goes off the rails, hitting Annabel where he knows it will hurt most, right in the middle of her public image. She goes into expert damage-limitation mode, and seems to have everything under control, but it isn't as simple as that...

This is a very short novel even by Spark's standards (Alice Munro has written "short stories" longer than this), and it's another one where the reader has to do a lot of the spadework of filling in the bits of the narrative Spark didn't bother with, but there's a lot to think about - not just the tyranny of PR and the superficiality of the film industry, but also the way society still has ridiculous and contradictory expectations of women in public life as professionals, spouses, parents and sex-objects, and the damage that trying to live up to those impossible expectations can do. And in passing it's also a little love-song to Rome, and a compact manual on Italian perceptions of Englishness (and English perceptions of Italianness). ( )

In fact he could have played the part well had he not been inhibited by the idea of revolt from his marriage. He was now so settled in a daily determination to end the marriage, call off the public image, declare it null and void, that he did not see the point of doing anything about it just yet, especially as it would be construed as a gesture of disappointment at not getting the part. He settled into a routine of deciding to break with Annabel, and to wait until they had left these gossipy circles.

By the end of chapter 2, I was bored with this tale of an unhappy marriage between a film star whose career was on the rise, and her resentful husband, and nearly didn't continue. But I flicked through a few pages near the end, discovered that the plot did take a turn for the more interesting, and decided to carry on.

At this point in the film story, Frederick's script had been to various alteration-hands; and the final version approved by the American Corporation which was putting the bulk of the money into it at first moved Frederick to request that his name be removed from the billing. But later, when publicity for the film became rife, he got his name put back again.

Frederick resents Annabel's career and the necessity for them to keep up a good public image until she is more established, and rather than asking for a divorce, takes drastic measures to ruin her image and career. Frederick was prepared to kill someone else (the girl who was drugged and left in a coma in the bathroom) as well as himself in order to get revenge on his wife, so it made me laugh when Annabel mentioned that the stories in the paper were all focussed on her, rather than on her husband's suicide.

I hadn't heard of this book before, but I enjoyed it a lot after the slow start. ( )

Rome finds our main character acting the part of enthralling actress cultivating her image for an adoring public. A perfect setup for Spark (and the reader). ( )

A completely surprising book, at the outset by its traditional omniscient narrative, eventually by how that failed to define the book itself. Perhaps this is one of Muriel Spark's lighter works; I will be reading others to find out.