PRE-SALE

Published by Deadbeat Club
112 Pages
Hardcover with open spine
8.25” x 10.25”

In 1980, as a young photographer just beginning her MFA in San Francisco and developing a keen interest in documenting labor, Janet Delaney embarked for a week on the job with her soon-to-retire father. The days are long and exhausting, but there is, in the incessant driving, carrying and chatting, a restless, pulsing energy streaming from Delaney’s photographs. Picturing the beauty parlors with a critical distance (she did, after all, grow up in a time of questioning constricted gender roles and capitalist consumer culture), using frontal, wide shots and often harsh flash, Delaney created a witty documentation of a day in the life of a salesman. Despite the photo-novella humor, Delaney came to see her father’s work under new light. All the tough business dealings, all the missed dinners and the Saturday meetings became a testament to his efforts to provide for his children what he himself had not received. The story, ultimately, became a testament to his love.