Customer Reviews

Soul in the Stone: Cemetery Art from America's Heartland

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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John Gary Brown, does an excellent job at showing the eccentricity and beauty of grave markers. He uses different angles, and points of view in his compositions, to bring out a morbid beauty, that is rarely seen by the naked eye. A truly impressive collection of masterpieces. Just when you think the works speak for themselves, Brown also includes wonderful poetry, which co-exists perfectly with the photographs. A must for anyone's artistic anthology collection.

My husband John and I love tombstone art and stomp around the countryside taking photos of cemeteries. This is one of our favorite books, with lots of wonderful photos of cemeteries around St. Louis and so forth. The author also writes a wonderful commentary on the nature of cemeteries, their conditions, and how we view them today as a modern American society. The photos of the children's graves are especially haunting. A must for collectors of tombstone art.

While the photography is excellent, and the author offers several interesting insights into symbolism and customs, the facts about particular monuments are incorrect. He gives the wrong locations for several monuments (placing them in cemeteries across town), and the descriptions of the cemeteries themselves contain errors

Ok, so not everyone is into the "darker" side of life. We prefer to focus on sunflowers, streams and good old-fashioned values here in the midwest.
To many people, gravestones are just plain creepy. Haven't we all watched horror movies where the dead crawl out from beneath a cracked headstone and kill innocent lovers?
Mr. Brown's book made me look at the gravestones in a brighter (although not unentirely SAD) light. I saw the loss that families suffered through in the intricacy of massive stone mausoleums. I felt the emptiness of parents in the lifelike sculptures of their children. And I shook my head at the quirkiness of folks whose death markers are every bit as weird as they themselves must have been.
I've had this book for 5 years and I STILL pick it up now and again to read the stories behind the cemeteries. I have also given it as a gift to people in my life who I know won't get totally freaked out by it. They LOVE it.
It is a wonderful read/lookat/whatever.... just try it!--

We're very pleased with the book. Anyone with an interest in cemeteries and their markers would enjoy this book.

I really enjoy this book on several levels. It is a very informative book and covers many areas of the country that I can visit. I made a listing of some of the cemeteries I wanted to visit and made a trip to see them. I would have been unaware of them if not for this book. I highly recommend Soul in the Stone to anyone interested in cemetery art and interesting memorials to those who are departed.