New Orleans arts and culture hub Pelican Bomb just posted their review of Hurricane Story:
“Hurricane Story is a small book—seven by seven inches—and aside from a brief foreword by Rob Walker and Shaw’s even briefer artist statement, the story is told in less than 500 words. Evacuating in the dead of night, nine months pregnant, Shaw breaks down two months and 6,000 miles on the road into poetic fits of a few words per page (the longest is twelve). And then there are the photographs. Hurricane Katrina made landfall and Shaw gave birth to her first son on the same day, so it’s somehow fitting that when she and her new family finally made it back home, she began to replicate their emotional yo-yo of a journey with toys and dolls—a king-cake baby, an army green soldier figurine, miniature wine bottles. The waters rose and stagnated, the baby cooed and cried, Shaw took up smoking again and fantasized about bludgeoning her husband. Taken with the unpredictable, spellcasting lens of a cheap Holga camera, the resulting forty-six images are mysterious, playful, heartrending, triumphant, and at times very funny.”
