Men and Apparitions, Paperback

Descriere

``Lynne Tillman is still her established sui generis self. In this creation she gives us an emblematic (but unique) protagonist's sharp observations and drive-by meditations on the many conundrums of identity and purpose of our time. This book is compelling and bracing and you read many sentences twice to get all the juice there is in them.`` --Norman Rush, author of Mating and Subtle Bodies We are the Picture People. I name us Picture People because most special and obvious about the species is, our kind lives on and for pictures, lives as and for images, our species takes pictures, makes pix, thinks in pix. Why do human beings feel the need to create, remake, and keep images from and of everything? How are we supposed to live amid this glut of images? Men and Apparitions takes on a central question of our time through the wild musings and eventful life of Ezekiel Hooper Stark, cultural anthropologist, ethnographer, specialist in family photographs. As Zeke goes from being a child obsessed with his family's photo albums to a young and passionate researcher to a man broken by betrayal in love, his academic fascinations reflect his course, touching on such various subjects as discarded images, pet pictures, spirit mediums, the tragic life of his long-dead cousin the semi-famous socialite Clover Adams, and the nature of contemporary masculinity. Kaleidoscopic and encyclopedic, madcap and wry, Men and Apparitions showcases Lynne Tillman not only as a brilliantly original novelist but as one of our most prominent thinkers on visual art and culture today.