In this remarkable exhibition of Arturo Patten's photographs of the residents of a small town in Maine, Russell Banks provides a text that evokes the hauntedness of desolate landscapes (for which his novels, particularly Cloudsplitter, are so well known), along with a sense of the life people endure in such places. He also brilliantly explores portraiture and the ways in which we see ourselves in his reflections upon Patten's work. The Invisible Stranger will, of course, have a strong regional audience, but Banks's eloquent writing elevates the book to appeal to readers of such works as Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Russell Banks is the author of thirteen works of fiction. He has received numerous prizes and awards for his work, including the O. Henry and Best American Short Story Awards, the John Dos Passos Prize, and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in upstate New York.
Arturo Patten was born in 1939 and grew up in Mexico, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. From the age of thirty he lived in Italy and France. His portraits have been published and exhibited throughout Europe and the United States. The Invisible Stranger is his fourth book of photographs. He died in March 1999.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Russell Banks is the author of sixteen works of fiction, many of which depict seismic events in US history, such as the fictionalized journey of John Brown in Cloudsplitter. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous international prizes, and two of his novels-The Sweet Hereafter and Affliction-have been made into award-winning films. His forthcoming novel, The Reserve, will be published in early 2008. President of the International Parliament of Writers and former New York State Author, Banks lives in upstate New York.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A well intended concept falls short of its potential.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Invisible Stranger: The Patten, Maine, Photographs of Arturo Patten (Hardcover)
It's hard to be objective regarding The Invisible Stranger by Russell Banks and Arturo Patten having been raised in Patten, Maine. When I heard about the book I was rather excited. I left Patten in 1993 to attend college at Seton Hall University in NJ and inevitably stayed in NJ in order to pursue a career in the wilds of Manhattan. Since leaving Patten, I have become a sincere sentimental New Englander and have returned to embrace the wonders of the town in which I was reared. At best I can be frank about what my expectations of the book were and what the book actually was once I read it. The concept of someone taking photographs of the residents of Patten, Maine is quite quaint. The thought of someone then looking at the photographs and coming up with a story about all the people made me very excited. After all, I would know the true stories of these people! I would then be able to share this book with my friends that have come to hear all about the town of Patten, Maine and stories that once evoked the question, "Was that soap opera Peyton Place based on Patten?" Not far from the truth, this small Northern Maine town is a veritable treasure trove of deals gone bad and families reared from cradle to grave on the small (insert size) patch of rocky New England earth. It did not escape my notice that the fact that the photographer's last name is that of the town. I believe that it was that fact that brought Arturo Patten to Patten, Maine. I am sure that he could argue the fact that the roughly hewn landscape and the people who appear to be cut of similar roughly hewn cloth presented a great set of subject matter. But in my mind it was no more than a gimmick for his book. Not that I think that this is an extremely bad thing, after all it made the town that I love the subject! I think that what upsets me the most is the actual written content. Russell Banks just seems to go on and on with his ego stroking psychobabble about the complexity of man. Oh what lurks behind the hardened stare of a rural New Englander! An example of this being in the last paragraph of the book (one of the few where Patten is even addressed as the subject matter) Banks states, "It is possible that on some long, cold, lonely winter night, each of these good citizens of Patten, Maine, could snap, could descend into a slough of depression and never return, could go crazy? Could he or she awake one morning and, looking around the slowly brightening room, remember with sudden, overwhelming horror what happened last night?" It's sad that the residents of such a lovely town could be painted in such a dire manner. It's sad that the people who were photographed for this book will forever remain nameless because the authors chose not to acknowledge their true identities. But it is truly the cruelest trick of all that their images will have to sit nestled amongst such dire and depressing text for the rest of eternity. The people of the world will never know the truth about these people. About their moments of kindness or about how despair has touched their lives and yet they have gone on. Russell Banks and Arturo Patten where not kind enough to share those moments. I am thankful that I have this book. I am thankful that I have beautiful photographs of so many of the people that I grew up around, though to set the record straight not all are from Patten, Maine. But I am most thankful to be fortunate enough to have had the pleasure to have grown up surrounded by them all and to have had the opportunity to know that the misguided postulations of a self-serving writer can never encapsulate even to the smallest degree what kind of people they truly are.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A well intended concept falls short of its potential.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Invisible Stranger: The Patten, Maine, Photographs of Arturo Patten (Hardcover)
It's hard to be objective regarding The Invisible Stranger by Russell Banks and Arturo Patten having been raised in Patten, Maine. When I heard about the book I was rather excited. I left Patten in 1993 to attend college at Seton Hall University in NJ and inevitably stayed in NJ in order to pursue a career in the wilds of Manhattan. Since leaving Patten, I have become a sincere sentimental New Englander and have returned to embrace the wonders of the town in which I was reared. At best I can be frank about what my expectations of the book were and what the book actually was once I read it. The concept of someone taking photographs of the residents of Patten, Maine is quite quaint. The thought of someone then looking at the photographs and coming up with a story about all the people made me very excited. After all, I would know the true stories of these people! I would then be able to share this book with my friends that have come to hear all about the town of Patten, Maine and stories that once evoked the question, "Was that soap opera Peyton Place based on Patten?" Not far from the truth, this small Northern Maine town is a veritable treasure trove of deals gone bad and families reared from cradle to grave on the small (insert size) patch of rocky New England earth. It did not escape my notice that the fact that the photographer's last name is that of the town. I believe that it was that fact that brought Arturo Patten to Patten, Maine. I am sure that he could argue the fact that the roughly hewn landscape and the people who appear to be cut of similar roughly hewn cloth presented a great set of subject matter. But in my mind it was no more than a gimmick for his book. Not that I think that this is an extremely bad thing, after all it made the town that I love the subject! I think that what upsets me the most is the actual written content. Russell Banks just seems to go on and on with his ego stroking psychobabble about the complexity of man. Oh what lurks behind the hardened stare of a rural New Englander! An example of this being in the last paragraph of the book (one of the few where Patten is even addressed as the subject matter) Banks states, "It is possible that on some long, cold, lonely winter night, each of these good citizens of Patten, Maine, could snap, could descend into a slough of depression and never return, could go crazy? Could he or she awake one morning and, looking around the slowly brightening room, remember with sudden, overwhelming horror what happened last night?" It's sad that the residents of such a lovely town could be painted in such a dire manner. It's sad that the people who were photographed for this book will forever remain nameless because the authors chose not to acknowledge their true identities. But it is truly the cruelest trick of all that their images will have to sit nestled amongst such dire and depressing text for the rest of eternity. The people of the world will never know the truth about these people. About their moments of kindness or about how despair has touched their lives and yet they have gone on. Russell Banks and Arturo Patten where not kind enough to share those moments. I am thankful that I have this book. I am thankful that I have beautiful photographs of so many of the people that I grew up around, though to set the record straight not all are from Patten, Maine. But I am most thankful to be fortunate enough to have had the pleasure to have grown up surrounded by them all and to have had the opportunity to know that the misguided postulations of a self-serving writer can never encapsulate even to the smallest degree what kind of people they truly are.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buy this book for the photography.,
This review is from: The Invisible Stranger: The Patten, Maine, Photographs of Arturo Patten (Hardcover)
After seeing the stunning B&W portraits so wonderfully printed in this book, I knew I had to buy it regardless of what the text had to say. Even so, when I got it home I had high hopes that the text would tell me something about the people depicted in its pages, like a National Geographic story might. Or perhaps it would say something about the photographer and why he chose these subjects and what he liked about each image. I would have loved a technical treatise on how one takes such great on-location photographs. Instead, the text, while well written, doesn't have much to do with the photographs at all--and that's a shame. On the other hand the photographs are truly wonderful and they communicate for themselves. They show how compelling Black and White portraits can be. If you like Black and White portraits, buy this book for the photography. And if you enjoy Russell Banks' musings on the meaning of life, so much the better.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
