Broken Manual.

Edition of 300. Broken Manual was originally issued in an edition of 300 copies, each concealed within another hollowed-out book. Before being sold, all 300 copies were exhibited in an installation forming part of Soth's first US retrospective, 'From Here to There: Alec Soth's America' at the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis (12 September 2010 - 2 January 2011). Following the success of his first two books, Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004) and Niagara (2006), Soth began to explore the idea of 'a fantasy of retreat'. He created Broken Manual over four years, between 2006 and 2010; the genesis of the series stems from his fascination with the life of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk who, before he died in 1968, lived for almost three decades at the remote Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. This interest led to further investigations into the places where people go to escape civilisation and those that go there to escape, including monks, survivalists, hermits, and runaways.

Soth's alter ego, Lester B. Morrison, was borne out of this research and under this name, Soth created an underground instruction manual of sorts for those wishing to retreat from society and escape their lives. It includes suggestions such as '1. Change your appearance (beard)... 8. Create your own language... 7. Avoid women... 16. Get a dog.' Soth then travelled the country, taking photographs that illustrated the ideas found in the manual.

Soth explains in Interview magazine how the project had its origin in a commission by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, to make work in the American South: 'I was working in Atlanta and wasn't interested in Atlanta, and then I remembered the Olympic bomber, Eric Rudolph. I poked around where he had been living and hiding out while the FBI was looking for him. I wasn't so interested in the politics of it, it was more the fantasy of the man on the run, something I have always been attracted, the fugitive, that kind of story... it got me thinking about how I wanted to get at that desire to run away, without it being a documentary essay on a specific ideology, outside of the documentary tradition.'

First edition of 300 copies, signed and numbered in black ink on the lower cover; 4to (280 x 215 mm, 11 x 8½ in); colour and black & white photographs; printed grey wrappers, cream cloth spine with title in black ink, laid in colour colour photograph (254 x 203 mm, 10 x 8 in) signed and numbered on verso, housed in a hollowed out copy of 'The Nineteenth Century' as issued, with a bi-fold leaflet and colour photograph laid in to a pocket which is signed and numbered by Soth, fine; [146]mm (incl. 4 folding).

The Photobook: A History III, p228.