Michael Lesy (born 1945) is an American non-fiction writer.[1] His books, which combine historical photographs with original writing, include Wisconsin Death Trip (1973), Real Life: Louisville in the Twenties (1976), Bearing Witness: A Photographic Chronicle of American Life (1982), Visible Light (1985), Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties (2007), Repast: Dining Out at the Dawn of the New American Century (with Lisa Stoffer, 2013), Looking Backward: A Photographic Portrait of the World at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century (2017), and Snapshots 1971–77 (September 2021).[2]

Lesy grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio.[3] He received a B.A. in theoretical sociology from Columbia University, an M.A. in American social history from the University of Wisconsin, and a Ph.D. in American cultural history from Rutgers University.[4] He taught at Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts, from 1990 to 2020, and is a Hampshire emeritus professor of literary journalism.[4]

Wisconsin Death Trip, Lesy's first book, was adapted into a film by James Marsh in 1999.[5][6] Ironically, Lesy explained in a 2003 interview, "I wanted to make it a movie. But it cost too much to produce. So it was just a poor man’s way of making a movie in book form."[3] Wisconsin Death Trip was presented on the BBC documentary series Arena in 2000.[7]

In 2006 the United States Artists Foundation named Lesy its first Simon Fellow.[8] In 2013 Lesy was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Photography Studies.[9]

Bibliography

Year Title Publisher
1973 Wisconsin Death Trip Pantheon Books
1976 Real Life: Louisville in the Twenties Pantheon Books
1980 Time Frames: The Meaning of Family Pictures Pantheon Books
1982 Bearing Witness: A Photographic Chronicle of American Life Pantheon Books
1985 Visible Light Crown Publishing Group
1987 The Forbidden Zone Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
1991 Rescues: The Lives of Heroes Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
1997 Dreamland: America at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century The New Press
2002 Long Time Coming: A Photographic Portrait of America, 1935-1943 W. W. Norton & Company
2005 Angel's World: The New York Photographs of Angelo Rizzuto W. W. Norton & Company
2007 Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties W. W. Norton & Company
2013 Repast: Dining Out at the Dawn of the New American Century (with Lisa Stoffer) W. W. Norton & Company
2017 Looking Backward: A Photographic Portrait of the World at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century W. W. Norton & Company
2021 Snapshots 1971–77 (September 17 scheduled publication) Blast Books

References

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