Middle Aged Men

by Adrienne Salinger

First edition, first printing. Limited edition of 500 hand-numbered copies, signed in black ink on the title page by Salinger. Hardcover. Fine gray cloth-covered boards with title stamped in white and gray on cover and spine, and with a tipped-in four-color plate on the back cover; no dust jacket as issued. Photographs by Adrienne Salinger. Unpaginated (56 pp.), with 48 four-color plates finely printed on heavy matt art paper. 13-5/16 x 11-5/16 inches. Time races as we grow older. The slippery memories of our past -- through which we define ourselves -- quickly recede and morph. The fact of "middle age" is that the hard-won identity that youth can't fathom, brings with it the gravity of physicality. The largest group of middle-aged people in the world live in the United States. They're older as you read this. Older still. This is a group of people who are at the height of their cultural power. No longer concerned with figuring out who they want to "be," they are by no means infirm. And yet when they look in the mirror, they can't recognize themselves. In a culture that worships youth and infantilizes old age, middle age is often invisible. The faces of these middle-aged men photographed by Adrienne Salinger suggest and reveal the choices they've made throughout their lives, experiences beyond their control, and the fragility of time. The particularity of these portraits allow a scrutiny that simply does not occur in "real" life. Because of the uniformity of her approach, Salinger's pictures also have a power beyond the simple document. They tell the truth the way a novelist tells the truth -- that is, completely, and not at all.

56 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2007

About the author

Adrienne Salinger is an American photographer.
Salinger is best known for her 1995 photo book In My Room: Teenagers in their Bedrooms. Her work is included in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Washington State Arts Commission, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Institute of Chicago. Salinger is a professor of photography at the University of New Mexico.