It's the honesty and fearlessness, the two mixed together, compelling her to own up to her mistakes, to acknowledge her winnings, to accept her losses (and those of her family). 'What I admire most about Sally Mann's new book is not her ability to write captivating sentences-she does.

That means it's probably just like her.'- Luc Sante, author of Low Life and Kill All Your Darlings 'Sally Mann's Hold Still is just like her pictures: forthright, adventurous, loving, fearless, beautiful, intimate, and somehow uncanny. In Hold Still, she wraps her prose around her pictures, revealing a fine talent for writing and a rich family history.'- John Grisham, author of The Firm and Sycamore Row 'For three decades Sally Mann has captured images that are unique, haunting, beautiful, disturbing, stark - it would take a mid-sized thesaurus to hold all the adjectives that have been used to describe both the art and the artist. I couldn't take my eyes off of it.'- Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and This is the Story of a Happy Marriage The book is riveting, ravishing - diving deep into family history to find the origins of art. 'In Hold Still, Sally Mann demonstrates a talent for storytelling that rivals her talent for photography. Hold Still is a masterpiece.'- Pat Conroy, author of The Death of Santini and South of Broad It's southern to the bone, hell on wheels. Written in her pitch perfect prose style, it is a textbook of illumination and desire for anyone who hears the siren call of art beckoning to them. 'Photographer Sally Mann's book Hold Still is one of the great portraits of the American South. In doing so, she manifests in prose the acuity of seeing that has propelled her to the top rank of contemporary artists.'- Andrew Solomon, author of Far From the Tree and The Noonday Demon

With prodigious intellect and a telling instinct for the exact detail that will reveal character or throw it into question, Mann delves into the treacherous territory of memory, mesmerized by the relentless dance of beauty and decay. 'One would not need to know Sally Mann's remarkable work as a photographer to be swept up in her memoir Hold Still, which draws upon a family history so rife with jaw-dropping drama that it could provide the grist for a dozen novels. My kind of true adventure.'- Patti Smith, musician and National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids

Sally mann hold still review