Synopses & Reviews
Berger presents a collection of moments, each supremely vivid, that together make up a frieze of human history at the end of the millennium as well as a subtle and affecting self-portrait of their author. Using careful, intensely visual prose snapping frozen vignettes of life, these twenty-nine "photocopies" teach us about lying and self-invention, dignity and tenderness, charity and courage. Overflowing with the sights, sounds, and smells of life, Photocopies is a masterpiece from one of the most important chroniclers of our time.
Review
"To those familiar with his style, this collection of short stories, with its surprising perspectives, meditations on words and people and its fascination with what seems at first to be the minutiae of life will be a welcome reminder of why people continue to read this eclectic writer. Each story is a 'photocopy' of the life of a person who made an impression on Berger's own life. These 'reproductions' of lives each have a unique resonance that brings the reader into a wholly new world. Separate as these worlds are, however, there are hidden strands that tie these stories together as well and it is these strands, not the facts and figures of daily life, that comprise the true biography of any life in this world among people. Like Henry Miller's similarly conceived book of people he loved, this portrait of Berger's human connections reveals more about him than it does about the people themselves and we are treated to a fleeting, yet profound autobiographical insight impossible when writers sit down to write about themselves." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)