MixedThe Los Angeles Review of BooksVivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife is intended as 'a counterpoint, a counternarrative, and a corrective' to the narrative spun primarily by the buyers of Maier’s boxes at the auctions of August 2007, and in particular, former real estate agent John Maloof, who has done more than anyone else to make Maier visible ... Maloof is, undoubtedly, the archvillain...Bannos simply follows the photographs, tracing where Maier went and looking at what subjects drew her eye. Her approach is refreshing — a clear-eyed, empirical account that counters the willfully obscure, ego-driven yarns spun by the buyers ...biography proceeds by dual narratives, shifting between recounting and retracing Maier’s life, and the story of how her oeuvre was subsequently 'discovered' following the auctions... A deftness of touch in knitting together biographical material with the historical situation is lacking.
