"Hold Still" - very interesting, perhaps a bit overwritten.

We had a lovely time at Jean's very lovely and book-filled house with some of our most dedicated readers. What fun, and we got to see pictures from Jean's daughter Emily's wedding (so beautiful) and  had yummy ham biscuit from the wedding too! Thanks so much for hosting Jean and to all who brought a wonderful array of goodies.

As for the book, the consensus seemed to be that it was an interesting read and that Sally Mann is a fascinating person who has accomplished a great deal with her work. Whether any of us actually liked her was a different question, one that we wondered was a fair one. Would we be wondering whether we would like a male photographer whose memoir we just read? Maybe, but would there be more distance, with less judgement? Maybe.

And of course, given the subject matter that brought her to prominence, pictures of her children that are still controversial, she come in for a lot of criticism as a person and a mother. The story of the New York Times censoring a photo of Virginia which caused Virginia so much pain was so interesting; the children could distinguish between a photo and themselves, yet so many others couldn't. And we were a bit ambivalent about that as well; was it alright?

Some of us have had a chance to meet Sally Mann and spend a bit of time with her. Fiona shared an exhibition with her daughter Jessie, the absolutely gorgeous one who is now an artist. Having met her,  the question is still open, but also the question of whether that actually matters.

I for one, found her charming and riveting in person, although peculiar in her choice of material and choice of equipment and technique. The mix of ether and ancient lens that made up the Southern photographs were a good example. Why make it so hard? Was that really the best way to represent what she wanted to show?  The story of her having her dog skinned, buried and then the remaining bones exhumed was too extreme for me; oh and then came the Body Farm pictures. Which were in color.

Still, the narrative of how her life and art developed was good enough that we all finished it and for the most part like it. One thing that we all noted was how "crafted" her sentences were. Not all of them, not enough to diminish the overall success of the story, but enough to make me and others skip ahead. In some cases, it was a bit hard to follow and she also seemed to reach for vocabulary. This is a pretty well-read group and we were scratching our heads about some of her word choices, but not enough to look them up. There were too many of them!

So overall, we liked it. The jury is still out on her but isn't that always the way with women artists?

OK, on to a very different read, Tigerman by Nick Harkness. We will meet on the 20th of July at Ashley's. August will be at Fiona's, and we will read the new Harper Lee book, Go Set a Watchman. I can't wait!!

I am a subscriber to Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concerns, which is a literary journal edited by Dave Eggers. It is amazing and so creative and resourceful. The most recent quarterly included two previously unpublished stories by Shirley Jackson of "The Lottery" fame.  It never occurred to me that she had written anything else but in fact she was a prolific and well-read author in the her time. So we have picked one of her best-know novels for September, We Have Always Lived In The Castle. This one will be out west on September 21, I am hoping for the Deep Run Hunt Club.

Please note, Wendy, Mary and I have a board meeting that usually meets on Mondays and so once we get the schedule, we may need to adjust dates a bit. Still, this is good planning ahead. Thank you again Jean!