Dani Shapiro's Black & White
The protagonist of this novel is a woman whose mother achieved fame and fortune by taking photographs of her young daughter naked. As an adult, the daughter has cut off all contact with her mother, until news reachers that her mother is dying. She struggles to come to terms with the role the photographs played in her own life while trying to raise her own daughter. Blah. This book was pretty good, but I wished they had fleshed out some of the characters more (like the protagonist's older sister). The ending also didn't do much for me. B-.
6 comments:
this sounds weird. i liked some of dani shapiro's earlier novels, though. i think family history is one of them, maybe?
it wasn't weird, exactly--it had really interesting ideas, but her characters were just really flat. i've never read anything else by her--would you recommend her other stuff?
I have to wonder if she was inspired at all by Sally Mann.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Mann
Wow, after reading that, I'd say it's a strong possibility.
A nice thing about the Sally Mann "story" is that in real life, all three of her kids really support their mother's efforts, and at least one of them has pursued an artistic career of her own.
p.s.
see here for videos of Sally and daughter Virginia at a family art exhibit:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17861120/site/newsweek
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