Book review.

Other than an apparently factual error in Chapter 6 – she used an “old Leica” in 1918 – this Dorothea Lange historical fiction was fascinating. The story fit into what I know about her actual life, focusing on her time as a portrait photographer in San Francisco, with the historically vague “Ah-yee” or “Chinese Mission Girl” fleshed out as “Caroline Lee”. It seemed a little hurried when it raced past the Migrant Mother episode to Dorothea’s and Caroline’s closure meeting in Paris years later, and I would have liked a little film/developer information (or at least speculation) to go along with the frequent references to her Graflex. Four out of five f-stops. (A new Lange bio has just been release and I’m sure I will be reading it soon.)