An eclectic, exciting collection of photos infused with a wandering curiosity.
In this book of photographs taken in various states and countries, a man embraces the “flâneur” spirit and presents the vivid subjects encountered on his aimless explorations.
In a brief but effective artist statement, Labry reveals how he got his start: as photography manager for the Texas House of Representatives, where part of his job was “to unobtrusively chronicle the members’ interactions in the House Chamber.” The instrument responsible, a Leica M series film camera, also took the pictures that make up this collection. Years ago, the author dubbed his trusted camera “Nola” in honor of his beloved hometown. While many places are represented in these photos—Berlin, Paris, Texas, Ireland—none is more lovingly and vibrantly captured than New Orleans. “Some of my earliest childhood memories are of natural light,” Labry writes, and his description of the city’s particular glow suggests that there’s no better birthplace for an aspiring photographer. In these 89 photos, he returns again and again to art as a subject. Photos capture murals, paintings, and graffiti, but images of statuary persist throughout the collection. “Statue of Andrew Jackson,” “Statue of Professor Longhair,” “Statue of Slave Girl,” “Statue of Ignatius J. Reilly” are just some Labry has included. Seeing as the artist has already produced a book of photos of Joan of Arc statuary, this is clearly an abiding interest for him. But the images of people are the true standouts. “Fast Food” and “Jackson Square” both capture folks slumped on benches; “French Quarter” shows a man playing a guitar on a stoop. “Mardi Gras” depicts an older man and a young boy intimately conferring in what looks like the bed of a truck. These beautiful images are evidence of Labry’s excellent eye for human figures and how they occupy space and frame. In this volume, the living are more exciting subjects than the inanimate. The author writes: “All photographs are as much or more about their creator than the thing photographed.” These works tell readers their creator is a keen and compassionate observer of a city’s human denizens.
An eclectic, exciting collection of photos infused with a wandering curiosity.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 99
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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