

"In Hold Still, Sally Mann demonstrates a talent for storytelling that rivals her talent for photography. Hold Still is a masterpiece."- Pat Conroy, author of The Death of Santini and South of Broad It's southern to the bone, hell on wheels. Written in her pitch perfect prose style, it is a textbook of illumination and desire for anyone who hears the siren call of art beckoning to them. "Photographer Sally Mann's book Hold Still is one of the great portraits of the American South. In doing so, she manifests in prose the acuity of seeing that has propelled her to the top rank of contemporary artists."- Andrew Solomon, author of Far From the Tree and The Noonday Demon With prodigious intellect and a telling instinct for the exact detail that will reveal character or throw it into question, Mann delves into the treacherous territory of memory, mesmerized by the relentless dance of beauty and decay. "One would not need to know Sally Mann's remarkable work as a photographer to be swept up in her memoir Hold Still, which draws upon a family history so rife with jaw-dropping drama that it could provide the grist for a dozen novels.

My kind of true adventure."- Patti Smith, musician and National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids In lyrical prose and startlingly revealing photographs, she crafts a totally original form of personal history that has the page-turning drama of a great novel but is firmly rooted in the fertile soil of her own life. racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder.” Sorting through boxes of family papers and yellowed photographs she finds more than she bargained for: “deceit and scandal, alcohol, domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly loved and disputed family land. In this groundbreaking book, a unique interplay of narrative and image, Mann’s preoccupation with family, race, mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history that precedes her.

This National Book Award finalist is a revealing and beautifully written memoir and family history from acclaimed photographer Sally Mann.
