more and more friends and relatives get sick and/or die in midlife and onwards. just this year, i lost three friends. and recently, one was diagnosed to have leukemia. our mortality beckons us. it is thankfully balanced by births and the sense of immortality they provide -- our offsprings producing their own offsprings in the big circle of life.
annie liebovitz' book validates this midlife phenomenon. death and illness and births in photos. and she gets quite personal. graphic pictures of susan sontag's battle with a deadly illness and, in the end, of her cadaver has made her a target of vicious flak. but she is a professional photographer. and this book is about her life and her life with susan. and what better way to grieve and heal than to immortalize it all in pictures.
she is top-rate and enjoys full poetic license. some downsides: the text that starts the book is too streamy-of-consciousness; it does not have a table of contents or an index at the end; no pagination too. but all these simply tell you that it is an intimate photo album. and, i have no regrets buying the book. it is definitely a collectible. cindy crawford's photo alone makes it so.
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