A young boy, thin and ill, feeds his small brother in a ritualized act of desperation, half-stifling him. The boy will be treated, his father will get a job, and the family will be moved from their shack in the slums of Rio de Janeiro to a suburban house, courtesy of the American viewers of Gordon Parks's photographs in Life magazine. It all turned out nicely, according to Life. Yet, in essence the life of that family was lost. Using examples from Parks, Barthes, Lévi-Strauss, and Elizabeth Bishop, Prosser (American literature, U. of Leeds) explains how photographs represent past real moments that are no longer, and shows how photography documents loss rather than celebrates memory. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)