LOST IN A SEA OF FACES

{Face in the Crowd by Alex Prager} 

If you've ever been crushed in a sea of strange faces in a new city, you will understand why photographers are drawn to crowd shots.

The above photograph, Face in the Crowd, is by the renowned photographer, Alex Prager whose work has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Vogue and W Magazine. 

 Los Angeles photographer Alex Prager has taken it a step further in her documentation of crowds:

staging imaginary scenes seemingly influenced by a mix of Alfred Hitchcock suspense, the Technicolor style of William Eggleston and the costume design of Cindy Sherman.

"I’m fascinated by the experience of being involved in other people’s lives accidentally,” Prager said.

“Crowds have always been an interest of mine. It may look like a sea of people, but there are so many interesting stories, all colliding silently.”
http://news.yahoo.com/alex-prager-photographs--a-face-in-the-crowd-202522976.html

{Cover by the legendary Leonora Roy}

 

Ms. Prager's words echoed my own sentiments in my novel, DEATH IN THE HOUSE OF LIFE. 

 

As Ada Byron Lovelace lay dying in 1852, Samuel McCord entered her life. 

Cut off from her "corrupting" friends by her mother and abandoned by her husband after a tearful confession,

Ada clung to the compassionate Texas Ranger who came to her bedside for help with a fateful riddle.

 

It took her to Egypt, against her mother's wishes, for one last adventure -- an adventure which transformed her death into unlife.

 

Now, in 1895, she is back with Samuel McCord in Egypt for another perilous adventure.  Why does she still cling to Samuel though he is married and she is in a loving relationship with another?

 

We wander into each others' lives by accident -- or they into ours.  Some lives cling to us or we to them by mutual interests or needs.

 

But years and events winnow those from our past down one by one.  When you have no one left from a cherished time, it is as if it never really happened.

 

Samuel is the last person left from the time Ada still drew breath. 

 

To lose him would be as if she herself were in danger of disappearing. 

Samuel was shaped by the same times as her.  He understands her jests, her way of looking at life.  He is her touchstone to sanity.

 

In DEATH IN THE HOUSE OF LIFE, lives, both alien and earth-born, collide in a tale of conflicting obsessions, needs, and dreams.  Not all survive the collision.