Was she pretty?

Was she pretty?
What’s left when a relationship ends? Where does jealousy
come from? Delicately and sensitively, Leanne Shapton (Swimming
Studies) ruminates on ex-lovers, and our lovers’ ex-lovers. A
few expressive pencil lines outline a long abandoned winter
coat here, an ineffably alluring Mona Lisa smile there. Each
double page describes the way all exes are captured: as impossible
to live up to as a Polaroid taken at a flattering angle.
This new paperback edition of Was She Pretty? brings the reader deep into a circle of phantom; its intimate liaisons, embarrassing secrets, and sardonic anecdotes. Shapton introduces the obsessives and the dilettantes, the poets and the actresses, the people with great hair and the people with idiosyncratic clothes. As funny as it is insightful, Was She Pretty? speaks to a central human concern: how do we compare? Elegantly drawn and perfectly narrated, the pages of Was She Pretty? are a testimonial to the power of observation and misapprehension.
This new paperback edition of Was She Pretty? brings the reader deep into a circle of phantom; its intimate liaisons, embarrassing secrets, and sardonic anecdotes. Shapton introduces the obsessives and the dilettantes, the poets and the actresses, the people with great hair and the people with idiosyncratic clothes. As funny as it is insightful, Was She Pretty? speaks to a central human concern: how do we compare? Elegantly drawn and perfectly narrated, the pages of Was She Pretty? are a testimonial to the power of observation and misapprehension.