Generation loss

Art needs light – look at the lack of it. –Patti Smith, book frontpiece.

Generation loss: the loss of quality between subsequent copies of data, such as sound recordings, video, or photographs.

Music is a big part of this novel about Cass Neary – a photographer whose hard living lifestyle has caught up with her. This self-destructive anti-heroine was once famous for her pictures of the 1970s New York punk scene. Now she has been forgotten and jobs are hard to come by. As a mercy mission, an old friend assigns her to interview iconic 60s photographer, Aphrodite Kamestos who lives as a recluse on her own private island off the coast of Maine. Aphrodite is not interested in being interviewed by Cass.

On the island Cass learns ‘that a commune Aphrodite helped found has taken her bleak aesthetic to the next level in an effort to penetrate mysteries of life and death.’ – Publishers Weekly.

“Cass confronts a horrifying embodiment of the extremes to which her own artistic inclinations could lead…Hand explores the narrow boundary between artistic genius and madness in this gritty, profoundly unsettling literary thriller.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Citation: Hand, Elizabeth. Generation Loss. Northampton, MA: Small Beer Press: Distributed to the trade by Consortium, 2007. 320 pages.

Read about the author + reviews and her other books at the Elizabeth Hand website. Watch her video interview.