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A review by alexampersand
Who Killed Amanda Palmer?: A Collection of Photographic Evidence by Amanda Palmer, Beth Hommel, Kyle Cassidy, Neil Gaiman
5.0
Honestly, this book is exactly why I love Amanda and Neil as artists.
It's a 120-page book filled with photos and stories chronicling the various deaths of Amanda Palmer. The photographs range from darkly comical (Amanda dressed as a German beer garden waitress, with a clarinet stuck down her throat) to genuinely disturbing (Amanda hung from a child's swingset, while a child happily swings next to her)
The stories are brief, and few in number, but they show Neil Gaiman doing what he does best - sometimes writing realistic macabre stories, sometimes adding in odd twists and elements of mystery and fantasy. The combined story/photo elements also work extremely effectively - my personal favourite is a story recounting how a failed writer was pressured by his wife to throw his typewriter out of their hot air balloon... followed by a photograph of Amanda Palmer, dead, her head smashed by a typewriter.
Part of me wishes there were more stories - almost all of them feel like they would have some wonderfully Neil Gaiman back story to them. But some of them (like the aforementioned swingset photo) stand so beautifully alone that any words added to them may in fact detract from the photography itself.
It's a 120-page book filled with photos and stories chronicling the various deaths of Amanda Palmer. The photographs range from darkly comical (Amanda dressed as a German beer garden waitress, with a clarinet stuck down her throat) to genuinely disturbing (Amanda hung from a child's swingset, while a child happily swings next to her)
The stories are brief, and few in number, but they show Neil Gaiman doing what he does best - sometimes writing realistic macabre stories, sometimes adding in odd twists and elements of mystery and fantasy. The combined story/photo elements also work extremely effectively - my personal favourite is a story recounting how a failed writer was pressured by his wife to throw his typewriter out of their hot air balloon... followed by a photograph of Amanda Palmer, dead, her head smashed by a typewriter.
Part of me wishes there were more stories - almost all of them feel like they would have some wonderfully Neil Gaiman back story to them. But some of them (like the aforementioned swingset photo) stand so beautifully alone that any words added to them may in fact detract from the photography itself.