It was bold of Theroux to make Maude a photographer [in Picture Palace], and that she is believable as one is a remarkable feat, since artists are notoriously hard to draw. In a story of self-deception, photography is a near perfect metaphor for imperfect perception….

The plot's quite a creaky business in Picture Palace, but it hangs on a marvelously constructed and nicely realized metaphor of vision and blindness. At age eleven, snapping her first photograph, Maude suddenly cries, "I can't see!"—because her thumb is on the viewfinder. This is a tidy way of remarking that the self constantly gets in the way of vision, and throughout the book Maude's desires blind her for a time to important facts that the reader has already guessed.

Maude herself is a vigorous, rackety, memorable creation, though badly flawed. Her tenacity, cunning, and self-doubt would be quite sufficient to fuel...