Pictures of Us is an intricately constructed exposition of family trauma and its difficult resolution. Nevertheless, what could be a powerful and sensitive story is rendered mediocre by Alexander’s tendency to overexpose his ‘pictures’. A photograph of Maggie Apperton, for instance, reveals ‘a petite girl-woman beaming with an innocence which was now replaced by a detached wisdom, an acceptance of things without questioning, a quashing of her feelings and emotions’. Any flickers of lyricism are undone by Alexander’s compulsion to fill in the gaps and explain every context, every circumstance – without nuance or mystery – but always with an abundance of cliché.

The tedium of this experience is not relieved by characters who remain, for the most part, cold, shallow and self-centred types, portrayed by their creator with little emotional insight, despite the sustained indulgence in their most banal actions and preoccupations. A deeper investigation of character towards the end of the novel comes too late to rescue this family photo album from an overall impression of surface gloss and mundane focus. Of course, a dialogue-driven, realist style that does not pretend to leave much to the imagination might enhance the commercial appeal of Pictures of Us. However, the pleasure to be gained from reading fiction, the allure of imagining and interpreting details and emotional responses for oneself, is sadly denied Alexander’s reader, for whom overexposure is merely underwhelming.