Neighbors

In 1954, photojournalist Lieberman went on an assignment to the Illinois farming town of Scales Mound and became so attached to the people there that he spent the next 40 years documenting their way of life, eventually even moving to the community. Concentrating on the Hammers (the subjects of his earlier book, Farm Boy ) and several other families, he follows his neighbors through three generations, photographing them and recording their plainspoken accounts of their lives, their beliefs and their love of the land. Farm failures and loan foreclosures are ever-present threats, but these hard-working people are at ease with their modest lives, and this contentment is reflected in their faces. The book is appealing because Lieberman's 165 strong, candid black-and-white photographs of his neighbors at picnics, ice cream socials, Sunday dinners, sewing bees and baby showers are as unpretentious as what these self-reliant men and women have to say about themselves. (Nov.)