Sodom Laurel Album - by Rob Amberg (Mixed Media Product)

About the Book

Richly evocative images are interlaced with stories of the people of the small North Carolina mountain community of Sodom Laurel, and with Amberg's own candid journals, which reveal his gradually growing understanding of this world he entered as a stranger. The book also includes a CD featuring Dellie Norton, Doug Wallin, and other singers of traditional Appalachian music. Through words, photographs, oral histories, and songs, Sodom Laurel Album tells the moving story of a once-isolated community on the brink of change, the people who live there, and the music that binds them together.

Book Synopsis

When photographer Rob Amberg first met Dellie Norton and her adopted son, Junior, in 1975, Norton was seventy-six years old and had lived most of her life in the small mountain community of Sodom Laurel, North Carolina, surrounded by close kin, tobacco fields, and the rugged wilderness of the southern Appalachians. Sodom Laurel Album traces the growing relationship between Norton and Amberg across the next two decades, years marked by the seasons of raising and harvesting food and tobacco and by the gatherings of family and friends for conversation, storytelling, and music.

Richly evocative images are interlaced with stories of the people of Sodom Laurel and with Amberg's own candid journals, which reveal his gradually growing understanding of this world he entered as a stranger. The book also includes a CD featuring Dellie Norton, Doug Wallin, and other singers of traditional Appalachian music. Through words, photographs, oral histories, and songs, Sodom Laurel Album tells the moving story of a once-isolated community on the brink of change, the people who live there, and the music that binds them together.

Sodom Laurel Album is the companion publication to a traveling exhibition that will open at the Asheville Art Museum in November 2002.

This project received support from the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Review Quotes

"[Amberg's] subjects are worn with the hard work of planting and harvesting tobacco, yet this book celebrates a way of life maintained through generations by the spirit of family and community, story and song. . . . Includes a memorable CD of Dellie Norton and others singing traditional, yet still vital, Appalachian music. This fine work should be included in all social history or regional studies collections and in large public collections."--Library Journal

"A flowing record of candid recollections by Amberg, Norton and her family interwoven with intimate photographs shot over two decades."--Carolina Country

"A stunning achievement from top to bottom."--Southern Cultures

"Although books of photographs should mostly stand solely on the merits of the imagery with few, if any, words, even Rob Amberg's personal journal is unobtrusive, adding an additional level of depth to a document already deeply rich. . . . The photographs, in conjunction with the CD, weave a rich tapestry that warmly embraces you."--Journal of Appalachian Studies

"Amberg has skillfully crafted the profound narrative of a community, a family, and most exquisitely, a woman constantly on the brink of change. . . . [He] has assimilated meaning into image and supported those images with the stories, interviews, and music that bind the community of Sodom Laurel together." --Appalachian Life

"Amberg's beautiful yet stark and unassuming b&w photos form the book's core. . . . The photos are accompanied by transcribed narratives . . . Most are grim yet immediate and compelling. . . . An exemplary example of regional documentary, the project exhibits care and concern throughout, and will draw in outsiders from any locale."--Publishers Weekly

"If we want to record the lives of the most rural mountain people, we want someone like Amberg to do it. . . . The pictures and stories illustrate [a] subtle, inevitable progression. Amberg has made a good record."--Now & Then

"Readers in search of a unique and richly textured experience will appreciate the opportunity to hear [Norton's] voice--unapologetic and raw, interpreting traditional Appalachian ballads. Amberg's time spent with Norton, Junior, and the Sodom Laurel Community results in a compelling portrait of a family bound by place and united by the past."--Our State

"This is the real thing! Wonderful photos, narrative, and interviews take you deep into the lives and times of the folks of Sodom Laurel. And the singing! The powerful unaccompanied singing tradition, the likes of which you rarely hear anymore, flows from the old people of Sodom Laurel like a deep mountain spring."--Alice Gerrard, Old-Time Herald

"We have Rob Amberg's beautiful and respectful photos, stories, and recorded interviews and performances to thank for preserving these real 'songcatchers' and their rich and essential history for a whole new generation."--Mark D. Moss, Sing Out!