Copy of Family Car Trouble
Gus Powell
Hardcover with dust jacket
128 pages
74 plates
6.25 x 9"
ISBN 978-1-942953-39-5
Edition of 940
With Family Car Trouble, Gus Powell plays with the form of the novel, both as material object and as narrative vehicle for expressing interior life. The work records and reckons with the arrival of children, the departure of a father, and the maintenance of a difficult 1992 Volvo 940 station wagon.
A new classic of the Automotive Bereavement Parenting genre.
Selected Press and Reviews:
"Powell tells a tale of life as it happens, poetically interwoven, stylistically cohesive. His pictures are close to the bone; there are no photographs of him, but he is, nevertheless, present throughout.”
- Elisabeth Biondi
“I yearn for my driving days.”
- Maria Friedlander
"Gus Powell photographs through and across the deep range of emotions that exist within the microcosm of family. He does this in a subtle and honest way, reminding us of the big and small, the joyful and the painful, and the dark and light moments in life and in death. The work transmits deep feeling for the challenges and magic of being between young children and older parents."
- Elinor Carucci
"Through my own work pairing memories and motors, I relate to the therapeutic nature of Gus Powell’s touching and fragile family epos. The love and care of a family member and a family car is a visceral journey. Their eventual breakdown proves photography's continual strength as a tool for personal storytelling.”
- Erik Kessels