Can’t Pay You to Disappear by Thomas Vandenberghe is a deeply haunting, visceral photobook that maps the slow descent of a relationship into obsession, trauma, and emotional ruin.

Presented as a private diary or intimate scrapbook, the book utilizes a cloth-tied binding, tactile paper, and images printed to look like physical, glued-in photographs. It opens with understated, quiet nudes of a young woman in flash-lit rooms. However, subtle and ominous details quickly interrupt the domestic stillness: hands tied with a leather belt, faint bruises on skin, and a jagged cliff dropping into nothingness. Sparse text fragments—such as "The day he was discharged, she was waiting for him just outside..."—hint at a troubled past shaped by mental illness, passion, and volatile attachment.

As the narrative progresses, the book's controlled rumble escalates into a crashing emotional crescendo. The imagery turns increasingly dark, metaphorical, and distressed. Panty shots, scraped skin, and gnarled trees give way to a frenetic, almost bipolar mix of mania and despair. Vandenberghe physically attacks the photographs themselves: prints are folded, ripped, smudged with fingerprints, and stained, reflecting the growing desperation of the photographer's mind. Cryptic lines like "the rage was gone" and "the meds were slowly wearing off" anchor this psychological spiral.

The book reaches a toxic, heartbreaking finale. A single portrait of the woman is copied and recopied page after page, each version violently scratched until her eyes are completely erased.

Through its masterful management of suspense, pacing, and physical decay, Can’t Pay You to Disappear transforms the abstract weight of interpersonal obsession into an unforgettable, unravelling visual statement.