American Anthem

I give it half marks. I can see why they called it an Anthem: Doctorow placed poetic prose in between Suarès's carefully chosen photographs, photographs taken by many different photographers. I didn't get the emotional buzz that I believe they were trying to elicit. My favorite part was in the back of the book where the actual subject of each picture was stated. I doubt very much that the book was produced for people like me - maybe for those folk who live in the "red" states. Anyway, I'm currently on prozac and not much gives me an emotional buzz. ( )