Our Town
Marion, Indiana: birthplace of James Dean and Jim Davis (creator of Garfield), and "location for the last organized lynching in the American north."
The author, according to the reviewer, makes the following argument:
Carr asserts "that there can never be a real dialogue in this country between white people and black people until those of who us who are white begin to tell our terrible stories." And most white people "come from something," she writes: "slaveowners, Klansmen, dissemblers, dehumanizers, averters of eyes."
It's a great review (in the Village Voice) and I love the cover. It's restrained (this could have been done in a much more sensational way) and the rope is just ominous enough. Do we need a noose? I don't think so.
4 comments:
that drop shadow works remarkably well. whattdya know.
How would it look if instead of the rope only the drop shadow (with noose) would be visible? The rope comes across a bit heavy-handed, by looking at the cover you can't decide if it means that the lynching divided the town or actually holds it together (this interpretation is rather strange, but it was the first, that sprang to my mind).
Martin: I didn't think of the rope as something that stood for a town divided, but I like that interpretation.
That was my first thought: a town divided. Also "rope burn" came to mind, but whatever. The town divided idea is great, and I always like it when a cover composition has multiple layers of meaning to it.
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