READING IN THE DARK

Narrated by a boy growing up in Derry in the Forties and Fifties, Reading in the Dark entwines fears, fantasy and reality. So Jonathan Cape art director Tracey Winwood’s response to the brief manages to be both literal and allegorical. The original photograph, supplied from the author’s own collection though not picturing him, portrays two young boys – one jaunty, the other withdrawn. Are they the two sides of the same life? Winwood commissioned photographer Jeff

Cottenden to reshoot the image under cracked glass. The result is a shadowy, haunting image with the figures further divorced from reality and literal inspection. The overall effect, complete with the simple type, is intriguing, suggesting the book’s contents to be violent, disturbing and full of sorrow. Priced at 13.99.