Love Is Blind - Hardcover

This quirky little picture book describes itself as "a true-false test, a chance to measure our private love experiences against the demonstrations of love we see around us every day." Drawing from many sources--advertising, movies, the news--Love Is Blind is alternately witty, trite, and disturbing as it examines every kind of love from the personal to the political. An image of Mother Teresa is juxtaposed with one of Ivana Trump hawking her romance novel; the Jonestown massacre faces a smiling O. J. Simpson hugging a blonde girl; the Vietnam Veterans Memorial stands alone.

Although often the visual quips are a touch belabored (placing a photograph of Prince Charles across from a magazine cover for Modern Romance is just one example), many of the images themselves are arresting. Love Is Blind begs a closer look; with each perusal the view gets darker, stranger, and more compelling.

Marvin Heiferman and Carole Kismaric's packaging firm Lookout produces visual books and museum exhibitions. Recent projects include Growing Up with Dick and Jane (Collins San Francisco); Talking Pictures (Chronicle); Loyalty and Betrayal: The Story of the American Mob (Collins San Francisco) a companion book to the FOX television mini-series; Mr. Salesman (Twin Palms) with Diane Keaton; the hugely successful Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood (Hyperion) with William Wegman and his dogs; and the cult classic I'm So Happy (Vintage).