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Chapters (16)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Introduction
  4. CATALOGUE OF THE EXHIBITION
  5. Greenwich Village, 1953–54
  6. Lower East Side, 1954–56
  7. Brooklyn Heights, 1956–1961
  8. Park Slope, 1961–63
  9. “The Samantha Series”
  10. Park Slope, 1963–70
  11. Cleveland, 1970–76
  12. The Last Self-Portraits
  13. Acknowledgments
  14. Reading Group Guide
  15. About the Author
  16. Copyright

And so this catalogue was written by someone whose life was tangled up in these photographs along with the lives of all the people who helped make them, whether they were standing in front of the camera, behind the camera, or somewhere off to the side. Because of that, it’s not like any catalogue you’ve read before. It’s personal. It’s unprofessional. And when the art-establishment types saw it, they were smart enough to leave it alone.

—Frances Pell, aka “Franny Panic”

New York, 1990

CATALOGUE OF THE EXHIBITION

All works are by Lillian Preston unless otherwise noted and are from the artist’s estate.

Greenwich Village, 1953–54

1. Untitled [Prentice High Camera Club, Cleveland], 1951 Unknown photographer

Feast your eyes, America. Here she is: America’s Worst Mother, America’s Bravest Mother, America’s Worst Photographer, or America’s Greatest Photographer—depending on who’s talking—as an anonymous high school junior, sporting the same light blouse/dark skirt combo and fake smile as the other girls. Look for a face with wide-set eyes and bangs at the end of the Camera Club’s second row. Lilly Preston, who was never elected to class office or Most or Best anything. Other than Honor Society, this was the only high school club she was in.

Don’t blame me for the pencil marks. I never touched my mother’s photos. The first circled face is her photography teacher, Mr. Clark. The second is the Camera Club’s president, Sam Decker, “the best photographer no one ever heard of.” That description, which Lillian added whenever she showed off this picture, was the only time I heard her deploy anything resembling sarcasm.

Apparently my mother started writing Sam when she was a high school senior, at which point he’d already enlisted in the army and was serving in Korea. As far as I know, she never showed anyone else the letters she sent to him, the drafts of which she wrote in her journal. And because I only ever violated her privacy in the usual places—her bedside table, her bureau, beneath her mattress—I never found them. Not that I considered her photo boxes any more sacred than her underwear drawer, but at the time of my rabidly dysfunctional adolescence (not to be confused with my rabidly dysfunctional adulthood), fooling with those boxes would have implied an interest in her photography.