The book opens the doors on the decade of rich experimentation that immediately preceded Meatyard’s final opus, The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater. In 1950s America there were neither likely nor logical paths for a photographer. Family man, optician, photographer and avid reader, Meatyard found himself in the midst of a cultural and philosophical movement in Lexington, Kentucky, which at that time included Thomas Merton, Wendell Berry and Guy Davenport. Through the camera he explored and created a fantasy world of dolls and masks, where his family members played the central roles on an ever-changing stage. Lucybelle Crater, published posthumously in 1974, recorded his wife and family posed in disquieting settings, wearing masks and holding dolls, evoking a penetrating emotional and psychological landscape. The book presents 55 mostly unseen works from the Meatyard Archive, with essays by the writer and historian Eugenia Parry and the curator Elizabeth Siegel.