Alfred A. Knopf – November 2009
Alfred A. Knopf – November 2009
Reviews

a work of social archaeology
– Sean O’Hagan, The Guardian of London

“a book whose pages convey, beautifully, the strange cultural moment when a rat-infested hulk of a building hosted a perfect storm of creativity.”
– Financial Times Weekend Magazine.

“a stunning cross of scholarly history and Smith’s haunted photography.”
 Village Voice

“One of only thirteen books in 2009 to make each Year End lists of Publisher’s Weekly, Amazon, and the New York Times.”
– Amazon

“The most chaotic and soulful gift book this year…The book is an elegiac stew of sight and sound, and a singularly weird, vital and thrumming American document.”
– Dwight Garner, New York Times

“The samples from the tapes that Stephenson had transcribed work with the photos to bring a moment in jazz loft life as perhaps no work in any other medium, including documentary cinema, ever has. Absolutely magnificent.”
– Booklist, starred review.

“(A) landmark book…This will be an essential book for jazz fans, photographer lovers and those interested in the history of New York.”
– Publisher’s Weekly, starred review.

“Every obsessive deserves his own obsessive Boswell, and W. Eugene Smith has his in Sam Stephenson”
– Fred Kaplan, New York magazine.