Even if one does not accept the sometimes metaphysical import Nemerov ascribes to the images, the intensity of his examination of them may well guide one not only to look harder at Arbus’s already widely and profoundly scrutinized canon, but at all images. What Nemerov calls “the fanatical quality of attention in poet and photographer,” he himself has in spades, as well as a rich mystical imagination. It’s unlikely that anyone who reads this book will put it down less critical, less observant, or less attentive to the possible, at turns fanciful and profound, relations between things.

Even if one does not accept the sometimes metaphysical import Nemerov ascribes to the images, the intensity of his examination of them may well guide one not only to look harder at Arbus’s already widely and profoundly scrutinized canon, but at all images. What Nemerov calls “the fanatical quality of attention in poet and photographer,” he himself has in spades, as well as a rich mystical imagination. It’s unlikely that anyone who reads this book will put it down less critical, less observant, or less attentive to the possible, at turns fanciful and profound, relations between things.

Even if one does not accept the sometimes metaphysical import Nemerov ascribes to the images, the intensity of his examination of them may well guide one not only to look harder at Arbus’s already widely and profoundly scrutinized canon, but at all images. What Nemerov calls “the fanatical quality of attention in poet and photographer,” he himself has in spades, as well as a rich mystical imagination. It’s unlikely that anyone who reads this book will put it down less critical, less observant, or less attentive to the possible, at turns fanciful and profound, relations between things.