Photo Selected for Book Cover

"The striking photo on the cover of Fairyland looks like it could have been taken one hundred years ago. It gives a sense of the otherworldly childhood that Abbott recounts in this memoir about growing up with her openly gay, single father in San Francisco in the nineteen-seventies and eighties."
- The New Yorker  June 2013

"The cover photo is perfect. Not since Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil has a photo so well captured the complex themes of a nonfiction book."  "I must also say that the book's cover is wonderful both before and after you read the memoir--the father and his brave daughter dressed up for a night out in fairyland." - Amazon UK reviews

A best seller written by my friend Steve Abbott's daughter Alysia, Fairyland is a beautiful, vibrant memoir about growing up motherless in 1970s and ’80s San Francisco with an openly gay father. I write about other collaborations with Steve and his SOUP Magazine and how he introduced me to poets, comics and comix artists in an earlier post (June 2010 post) on this blog. 

I took the cover photo in Golden Gate Park at the Portals of the Past on Lloyd Lake as one of several in a surrealism influenced series. I frequently used locations in the park to photograph, using friends as models in incongruous attire. Steve needed a cover photo for his poetry book Agape Bra and liked the other photos he'd seen. He invited me to take some photos in exchange for photo credit and exposure. In early morning light at a location I knew well, we arrived with Nikon and tripod, "costumes," and a sleepy 10 year old. Allowing for room for the title text and trying out different shots, this was the photo I chose. Steve agreed. In reality, with new agreements with Alysia and the book press it became the cover photo used on two different books. 

In the present, I look forward to seeing the promised photo credits when it is used in articles and publicity.

The book is available from W. W. Norton Company press at all major book outlets.

UPDATE from Deadline Hollywood on December 16, 2013: American Zoetrope has acquired screen rights to Alysia Abbott’s Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, with Sofia Coppola set to adapt it with Andrew Durham. She will produce with Roman Coppola.

“I love the book Fairyland; it’s a sweet and unique love story of a girl and her dad, both growing up together in 1970′s San Francisco,” Coppola said. “I think it will make an engaging and touching movie on a subject I’ve never seen before.”

Said the author: “I’m delighted that Sofia Coppola and Zoetrope are going to create the film version of Fairyland. Sofia’s understanding of the feminine perspective and the artistic vision that she shares with Andrew Durham make them ideal partners to make this movie. I could not be happier.”