Eye to I

The life of Erwin Blumenfeld, one of the century's best-known photographers, was by no means conventional. By turns acerbic, self-mocking, playful, even absurd, his autobiography is a compelling, virtuoso account of an extraordinary man. All his subjects - his Jewish family, the Germans, the Vichy French, his models, New York publishers - are dealt equal measures of wit, mockery, and merciless irony. He spares himself least of all.