PARKERSBURG, WV BORDERS BOOKS & MUSIC TO HOST PHOTOGRAPHER H. CASSER-JAYNE

Halli Casser-Jaynes’s book, STILL LIFE, images of Antietam is about war, the American Civil War. Ms. Casser-Jayne will be signing her work, which includes 70 duotone images taken at Antietam National Battlefield and 70 Civil War era quotes on December 17th at Borders Books & Music from 2pm to 4pm in Parkersburg, WV. Her book signing is in conjunction with the launching of the new Borders store at the Grand Central Mall.

War. Mention the word and hearts skip beats, jaws clench, minds question. “Wars start off emotionally, are fought tactically and end politically,” Ms. Casser-Jayne said in a recent interview. “Historically, we look back in a thoughtful way at that which has been. Rarely, do we address the emotions behind the wars the world has fought.”

Casser-Jayne knows something about war. A foreign correspondent in the 1980’s, Ms. Casser-Jayne reported from war-torn El Salvador and guerrilla-infested Guatemala. In an airplane hanger in Guatemala, Casser-Jayne broke ranks with the pool reporters managing an exclusive interview with a freedom fighter about to be exiled from his country. The San Francisco Examiner ran the story, but Ms. Casser-Jayne never felt she’d done

The young man justice. “He believed to the core of his being his cause was just. The story I wrote was appropriately fact-based and informational,” she said in a recent interview. “The large coffee-bean eyes of the guerrilla (today we would call him a terrorist), all I could see of his scarf-covered face, was the closest to an emotional description my editor allowed in the piece. Still, these many years later, I remain haunted by the young man’s eyes. They spoke volumes. He cared. He was passionate about what he cared about. Was what he did in the name of what he believed right? Probably, not. But the point is, he was passionate, if misguided. Sometimes it feels as if American’s have lost their passion. We forget what it is like to be the dispossessed. I hope to remind everyone by approaching Antietam from an emotional viewpoint.”

STILL LIFE, images of Antietam, the first serious book of photographs taken of Antietam Battlefield since Alexander Gardner’s 1866 book Sketchbook of the Civil War, addresses the passion of war. The 152-page volume is a deeply emotional look at the single bloodiest day in American history. Eminent historian, Dr. Joseph L. Harsh says the book “is for those who reach out to feel the past.” Antietam National Battlefield Superintendent, John Howard, who wrote the introduction to the book, calls the work “a refreshing viewpoint. Emotional? Yes. The images forced me to look in an unfamiliar way at that which I look at everyday.”

STILL LIFE, images of ANTIETAM, which sells for $32.95, is available at Borders Books & Music and other leading bookstores throughout the country. For more information visit: www.hcjstudios.com.

Contact: Halli Casser-Jayne
Email: antietam@hcjtudios.com
www.hcjstudios.com
Phone: 304.283.1163
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