Citizen Reader

I LOVED the picture book Vanishing America: The End of Main Street Diners, Drive-Ins, Donut Shops and Other Everyday Monuments, photographed by Michael Eastman.

For one thing, it's beautiful. It's not happy, but it is beautiful.

It consists entirely of photographs of theaters, churches, hangouts, doors, signs, stores, services, automobiles, hotels, and restaurants, many of which are defunct but some which are still operating. The pictures alone make this book a great one to cuddle with on the couch and to flip through at your leisure. Although it's got less text, it reminded me a lot of James Twitchell's superlative book Where Men Hide, which showcased pictures of men's hangouts (like the garage, barber shops, auto shops, etc.).

But I also loved the introduction, which was written by Douglas Brinkley. First he described the pictures thusly: "Where some might find gloom in these anti-Rockwellian photographs, I find a liberation from the glaring rat race of American life. In Eastman's images a scent hangs in the air like that before a thunderstorm--a time when another Chapter of Life is being closed with the slam of a screen door. Darkness is falling, but a red brick afterglow lingers in Eastman's work so you can still marvel at another crumpled calendar page being tossed away..."

I loved the imagery of the screen door slamming on a chapter of life. And then he concluded with this whopper:

"Eastman has brought us back to a place of holy remembrance in Vanishing America. J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur in Letters from an American Farmer wrote about pioneers brimming with 'forlorn hope' (which is, in fact, the meaning of the word pioneer in the Dutch language). I like that phrase. Somehow Eastman's art doesn't leave me depleted or shut down. I'm left with a 'forlorn hope,' a recognition that America is a land for transients and the unsettled. Always has been. Always will be."

Forlorn hope. I love that. And that is exactly what I think you'll feel looking at this book. It's beautiful. Check it out.