Sophie Calle: The Address Book

South Egremont, MA: Siglio Press, 2012. 1st edition. Hardcover. Siglio Press, 2012, 104 pages, 5.24 x 0.51 x 7.52 inches.

NEW, in publisher's shrink-wrap. Ships from Hawaii with free Priority Mail upgrade within US. A remarkably poignant and tender portrait of a man she would never meet. (Mary Kaye Schilling T Magazine)

The Address Book is never about one thing. One the one hand it is a simple character study and straightforward conceptual art project (task-based with a priori scheme, black-and-white documentation, and text). On the other, it's an unsettling confessional story with deeply erotic subject matter. It unnerves readers by striking a balance between submission and control, winding them through a maze of seduction and pursuit only to leave them deprived of fulfillment. (Lauren O'Neill-Butler LA Review of Books)

Given the ease with which we can access the lives of strangers in 2012, Calle's snooping might register as a quaint trespass from another era, an analog and ultimately harmless kind of proto-Facebooking. But her old-school sleuthing is daring, more so than it was in her earlier projects, such as Suite venitienne, in which Calle followed strangers, and La Filature, for which she hired a detective to tail her. The Address Book's adventure is riskier and more unpredictable. (Heidi Julavits Bookforum).