As a huge fan of the brilliant yet elusive photographer Vivian Maier, I was very excited to pick up the fictionalised account of her life Vivian by Christina Hesselholdt. The author examines the life of this mysterious outsider artist, whose vast body of photographs were unknown until shortly before her death, when the negatives were discovered in a storage unit and sold at auction. Viviangives glimpses of her childhood in rural France and the US, her dysfunctional family, her employment as a nanny in Chicago and her work as a street photographer. Hesselholdt weaves vivid scenes from her photographs into the narrative, fictionalising the circumstances in which they were taken.
Self-Portrait; October 18, 1953, New York, NY, Vivian Maier
Like Maier’s self-portraits, which often show the artist half out of frame or half in shadow, this portrait of her life is at times frustratingly incomplete. We’re only privy to snapshots, which when put together resist being formed into a coherent narrative. Instead Hesselholdt has created a polyphonic chorus of voices, mostly female, who work together and in opposition to form a compelling life study of a woman no one could ever truly understand.
As many details of Maier’s life still remain unknown, Hesselholdt lets these absences become part of the narrative, at times filling them with the voice of the intrusive Narrator, a woman living in the present day. Her anachronisms, including references to Google searches and YouTube videos, add to the fragmented structure. Although these things existed in Maier’s lifetime (she died in 2009), they feel a world away from the haunting street scenes of 1950s Chicago we most associate with her.
Undated, Vivian Maier
There are biographies and documentary films that give a much clearer picture of the events of Vivian Maier’s life than this novel, but none of them capture her true appeal: her unknowability. With her idiosyncratic and powerful narrative, Hesselholdt creates a fascinating portrait of an artist who resisted fame, and whose inner life is fated to remain opaque.
Vivian, by Christina Hesselholdt, translated by Paul Russell Garrett, Fitzcarraldo Editions, RRP £12.99, 192 pages
Book, Bell & Candle 