Confessions for a Son

Book excerpt: In 2010, photographer McNair Evans returned to his childhood home in Laurinburg, North Carolina to retrace his father's life and legacy after his death nine years earlier. His father's passing had exposed the looming insolvency of their family businesses, ending five generations of family and financial stability. The economic impact on the family was immediate but the emotional impact lingered with Evans.Seeking to comprehend how the man he admired could have hidden the impending disaster from those he loved, McNair Evans delved into his family origins and his father's history to create a multi-layered photographic narrative about love and loss. The artist's poignant and lyrical photographs are presented in his first monograph, Confessions for a Son (Owl & Tiger Books, October 15, 2014). The book's themes are universal--the complex relationship between fathers and sons, the strength of family bonds and the disappearance of an American agrarian way of life.Visiting the farms where he and his father hunted, his father's college dorm rooms, and his oldest friends, Evans photographed family members and businesses while researching his father's character and actions. Through this personal and photographic journey Evans moved from anger to empathy, and grew to love his father again. Evans' photographs are documentary and ethnographic, using light and evocative symbolism to convey the metaphorical in the abandoned businesses, totemic objects, and portraits of family and friends.