Crime Album Stories Hardcover - 2000

From the publisher

Proceeding from an intriguing photo album documenting some 30 murders committed in Paris between 1887 and 1902, Eugenia Parry has created a truly innovative work of historical narrative. At first glance it might appear as an ordinary collection of crime stories, but Parry has gone much further. Her well-trained eye analyzes the images, mostly taken by Alphonse Bertillon, a pioneer of criminal science working for Paris police. Based on extensive research into the crimes documented in the album she tells stories which go beyond mere descriptions of crimes and motifs. Consciously oscillating between historical evidence and fiction, Crime Album Stories investigates in a great variety of styles the ever eluding question of why people commit capital crimes. Drawing on the description of Armand Cochefert, head of Paris police between 1888 and 1902 who investigated most of the crimes in this book, Parry shows that in contrast to entirely fictional crime novels such as Sherlock Holmes, the ultimate motivation for crimes often remains unintelligible and that in real life, many cases are never solved. Her innovative experimentation at the boundaries between art history and fiction has been widely admired. Parry's recent contribution of prose poems to Photography's Multiple Roles: Art, Document, Market, Science was singled out by A. D. Coleman as a "fascinating suite of short essays....formally provocative texts".