In this unique interplay of narrative and image, Mann's preoccupation with family, race, mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history that precedes her. Sorting through boxes of family papers and yellowed photographs she finds more than she bargained for: "deceit and scandal, alcohol, domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly loved and disputed family land, racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder." In lyrical prose and startlingly revealing photographs, she crafts an original form of personal history that has the page-turning drama of a great novel but is firmly rooted in the fertile soil of her own life. Sally Mann is an American photographer, best known for her large black-and-white photographs -- at first of her young children, then later of landscapes suggesting decay and death. Mann is perhaps best known for "Immediate Family," her third collection, first exhibited in 1990 by Edwynn Houk Gallery in Chicago and published in 1992. The book consists of 65 black-and-white photographs of her three children. Many of the pictures were taken at the family's remote summer cabin along the river, where the children played and swam. Many explore typical childhood themes but others touch on darker themes such as insecurity, loneliness, injury and death. The controversy on its release was intense.

Prologue: The Meuse -- Family ties: the importance of place. The sight of my eye ; All the pretty horses ; The bending arc ; The family of Mann ; The remove ; Our farm, and the photographs I took there ; Hold still ; Ubi amor, ibi oculus est -- My mother: memory of a memory past. A sentimental welshman ; Uncle Skip and the little dears ; The southern landscape -- Gee-Gee: the matter of race. The many questions ; Hamoo ; Smothers ; The kid on the road ; Who wants to talk about slavery? -- My father: against the current of desire. The munger system ; Leaving Dallas ; Mr. death and his blue-eyed boy ; World traveler, interesting gent ; The cradle and the grave ; Bearing witness ; The sublime end ; The x above my head -- Postscript: Exhibit A, Exhibit B.