Evidence by Luc Sante

Product Details

Synopsis

Following Low Life, Luc Sante's acclaimed evocation of the underside of New York City's history, Evidence is an investigation into the mysteries of crime, death, and photography that only this brilliant and original writer could conduct.

In one sense Evidence is a picture book - a collection of 55 evidence photographs taken by the New York City Police Department between 1914 and 1918. These are startling images, some brutal, some poetic, and all possessed of a strange and spectral beauty.

Luc Sante minutely examines these pictures of crime scenes and draws them out by every possible means: speculating about the lives and deaths depicted; discussing the progress of the forensic use of photographs and the mission of photography itself; and, where possible, reconstructing the events that led up to these frozen terminal images. Evidence is many things at once: aesthetic object, historical and sociological document, mystery novel, memento mori, and time machine.

Annotation

The author of Low Life offers an eerie, insider's visit to the scene of the crime. This collection of evidence photographs, taken by the New York City Police Department between 1914 and 1918, presents startling images, some brutal, some poetic, and all possessed of a strange and spectral beauty. photographs.

Library Journal

While doing research for his highly acclaimed first book, Low Life ( LJ 6/1/91), Sante was given access to the New York City Police Department Archives. There he discovered some 1400 photos and glass plate negatives dating from 1914 to 1918. This was all that remained of the department's once-vast evidence photo files; the rest had been trashed. Taken from the files, these 55 raw, stark photos of the dead--victims of murder or suicides--are both fascinating and horrifying, showing the bodies as they were found by the police in tenement rooms or in vacant lots. The images are accompanied by the author's comments and some excerpts from original newspaper reports of the events. In all, this is a striking and highly original piece of social history. Recommended for large and specialized collections.-- Howard E. Miller, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Missouri Lib., St. Louis