Sodom Laurel Album, with Rob Amberg (Monthly Program)

Sodom Laurel Album, a portrait in photographs, stories, andsongPhotographer and writer Rob Amberg, a native of Silver Spring, Maryland, has lived inrural, mountainous Madison County, North Carolina, for 29 years. Shortly after hisarrival in the area, Amberg was befriended by the late Dellie Norton and her family,lifelong residents of the small community of Sodom Laurel. Remarkable for theirmusical talent, Dellie Norton and her family were small tobacco farmers who have ekedout a living in Sodom Laurel since the early 19th century. In his new book, Sodom Laurel Album, published by Duke University Press, Amberg has lovinglycreated a portrait in words and photographs of a family and, by extension, a community.There have been tremendous changes in Madison County over the last quartercentury, and these words and images capture the heart of rural America beset by a rapidlyevolving world.Informed by his personal point of view and a careful understanding of theregion's cultural history, Amberg combined his photographs with oral history andnarrative, including journal entries and a fascinating short history of tobaccoin the Western North Carolina mountains, to create Sodom LaurelAlbum.Rob Amberg presents a portrait of the SodomLaurel community in photographs, readings, and recorded muscial examples, revealing cultural and generational changes and the enduring importance offamily ties. Unfortunately, Sheila Kay Adams has had to cancel.