Hold Still

A Memoir with Photographs

By: Sally Mann

Narrated by: Sally Mann

This National Book Award finalist is a revealing and beautifully written memoir and family history from acclaimed photographer Sally Mann.

In this groundbreaking book, a unique interplay of narrative and image, Mann's preoccupation with family, race, mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history that precedes her.

Sorting through boxes of family papers and yellowed photographs she finds more than she bargained for: "deceit and scandal, alcohol, domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly loved and disputed family land . . . racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder."

In lyrical prose and startlingly revealing photographs, she crafts a totally original form of personal history that has the page-turning drama of a great novel but is firmly rooted in the fertile soil of her own life.

Critic reviews

"Hold Still is a wild ride of a memoir. Visceral and visionary. Fiercely beautiful. My kind of true adventure."—Patti Smith, musician and National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids

"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. 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. 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

"Photographer Sally Mann's book Hold Still is one of the great portraits of the American South. 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. It's southern to the bone, hell on wheels. Hold Still is a masterpiece."—Pat Conroy, author of The Death of Santini and South of Broad

"In Hold Still, Sally Mann demonstrates a talent for storytelling that rivals her talent for photography. The book is riveting, ravishing -- diving deep into family history to find the origins of art. I couldn't take my eyes off of it."—Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and This is the Story of a Happy Marriage

"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. 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

"Sally Mann's Hold Still is just like her pictures: forthright, adventurous, loving, fearless, beautiful, intimate, and somehow uncanny. That means it's probably just like her."

—Luc Sante, author of Low Life and Kill All Your Darlings

"What I admire most about Sally Mann's new book is not her ability to write captivating sentences--she does. 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). For this quality alone, Hold Still deserves a fixed place in the library of American memoir."

—Paul Hendrickson, author of Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost

Where is the pdf?

Sally Mann is as gifted with words as she is with photography. I wish I had the pdf of her work to reference as I listened.

Breathtaking...

As an artist myself, her description of creative process is magnificent and written as only one who knows could possibly articulate. Intimate, generously holistic in spirit, a magnificent memoir. A magnificent life.

Excellent Book Further Enhanced by Mann's Voice

The authenticity of her voice made the experience quite enjoyable. It really seemed like she was talking to me. She is able to go back and forth in time without any confusion.At times this is a brutally honest book about her family and herself. No apologies made-One of the best listening experiences I have had so far.

My favorite book

I am totally obsessed with this book. Loved it from minute 1 til the very end, except that it ended. As a photographer, I hung on her every word. This book is so beautifully written, I’m not sure if Sally is a better writer or photographer. It felt so relatable, like her and I have so much in common, we could be best friends. And that’s what it felt like, listening to a beat friend’s stories over coffee or wine. I saw reviews that said the pdf was of poor quality. Huh?? Mine was in perfect condition. It must have been updated. To access it, you’ll need to be on a computer, I don’t believe it’s accessible from a phone. But my copy was perfect, not sure what others were talking about, so I assume it’s been updated. I adored this book so much, I bought a hard cover and even considered getting an autographed first edition, which I might treat myself to someday. I love my hard cover too, love underlining the parts that especially spoke to me, which are countless. I highly recommend this audio version, I love her voice and how she tells her stories- she did a fantastic job. But to have this as a beautiful book to refer to is a must, too. I also watched, on Amazon Prime (it’s not on Netflix) “What Remains” a documentary on her life. It’s a perfect companion to this book. It was filmed several years before the book, but I found her to be even more lovable as I watched the film. I could not recommend this book more.

A moving and important memoir

Sally Mann has created an extraordinarily powerful body of work over her creative life (long may that continue). When much modern photography has become decorative and trivial, she has continued to address the fundamental verities of beauty, evanescence, death and decay in unflinching terms. And goodness! Can she ever write, too!

Her memoir, which is extraordinarily well written and something of a masterpiece of a Southern Gothic sensibility is also a major addition to an underdeveloped genre, the autobiography of a major photographer. Steichen and Sandburg explored this territory jointly, but too few others, and rarely with a verbal literacy to match the visual.

My only cavil is a minor one, and confined to the audiobook. Her frequent reference to the accompanying PDF (a valuable document in its own right) draws the listener out of the narrative, and is repetitive. Hard to see how this could have been avoided, and it is offset by the charm of her graceful reading.