Member Gallery Book Club: Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann

Join fellow Alliance members in the Main Gallery to explore literature – both fiction and non-fiction – revolving around art, artists, art history, and art appreciation. Participate in thoughtful group discussions and expand your appreciation and knowledge of the world of art! The June title is Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann.

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.

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 . . . racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder.”

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.