A new reissue of Leanne Shapton’s Guestbook, which “elevates the traditional ghost story into an art form” (Interview), collaging the verbal and non-verbal into brief, eerie narratives.
A house stands empty. Family photographs, wrapping paper, and watercolor portraits act as windows into other lives. Little sculptures relay the story of an estranged couple. Photographs of a tennis prodigy document his exhaustive fits.
Guestbook: Ghost Stories arranges artifacts and illustrations alongside meditative dispatches from a familiar, yet new reality. Her stories invite both visual and literal readings of forgotten objects, dark interiors, memento, laid carefully before us. Shapton’s beautiful and haunting pieces last long after the page has turned and the book has closed—making one wonder, ultimately, who has visited whom.

Leanne Shapton's profile page

Leanne Shapton is an author, artist, and publisher based in New York City. She is currently the art editor at The New York Review of Books. She is the cofounder, with the photographer Jason Fulford, of J&L Books, an internationally distributed not-for-profit imprint specializing in art and photography books. Shapton is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. She grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.