OWLS HEAD

Maine resident William Buckminster may be a mere junk dealer to some, but to photographer Purcell, he is a merchant-historian overseeing "vestiges from two hundred years of history" (e.g., skates and skillets, clocks without hands, 78 rpm records from the early 1900s, a miniature bed of nails, an iron lung, a corpse-like rubber baby doll leaking foam, a circular staircase, a bicycle planted up to the handle bars, a child's coffin, a fisherman's lantern, "the earliest existing brass foundry in the entire country"). Where another eye might see a trash heap, or, more generously, an unruly second-hand shop, Purcell finds "a garden of collective memories." At heart, this is a travel book, a meandering journey through "the vastness, disorder, and gentle melancholy" of Buckminster's 11 acres of sundry mutable matter, following Purcell from her first stumble upon it through two decades as she evolves from buyer to friend and as her studio grows to resemble a more composed version of Buckminster's collection. Reading Purcell is a bit like digging in Buckminster's mountains of stuff; readers come upon bits of his life, including his pool game, bits of genealogy and fragments of regional history. The end notes, peppered with about 40 photographs, were designed for scavengers as well; there's no telling what readers will find, whimsy or weight. Purcell is an acquired taste, rather like her own taste for old books ("Victorian paper tastes dry—better, actually, than the paper used in newer books"). Still, the book haunts; "perhaps," as Purcell observes, "a tea pot that holds no water is deeper than you think." (Oct. 20)

Forecast:Visitors to Owl's Head, Maine, which has a famous lighthouse and a transportation museum, could pick this up, along with fans of antiquing and collecting.