"A compelling experimental documentary work that deftly crosses lines of traditional photographic expression, Little Worlds is richly imbued with intersections of Amberg’s three eloquent narratives—photographs, journal writings, and the imaginative stories of returning to a place drastically changed. Little Worlds, like Amberg’s other work, reveals the cultural fabric of the southern Appalachians through his singular artful and poetic voice."

Tom Rankin, Documentary Arts, Duke University

"Rob Amberg has had his eyes and ears tuned to the Western North Carolina landscape and its people since 1973. Rob’s photographs are imbued with his unique perspective as both an “outsider” and an “insider,” and his work in the Asheville Art Museum Collection provides an intimate look at the region as it has changed over the years. Little Worlds, through the beautifully woven tale of words and images, of fact and fiction, importantly adds to the discourse on the veracity of photographs as well as the subjective nature of memories and myths."

Pamela L. Myers, Executive Director, Asheville Art Museum 

• from Little Worlds

The truck stopped and the stillness woke the boy. They'd been driving all night, one of many dark-of-the-moon trips over the last few weeks, avoiding people, stealing fuel when they could find it to steal, sleeping during the day after hiding the truck, a pistol tucked in the floorboard.

"Where are we, Papa?" Wright asked.

Frank said nothing. He was weary from the road and wary of what they might find. Had he decided right? Would they be safe in this surreal and desolate landscape? Could they survive here? He'd seen outlines of collapsing houses and barns as he drove but no signs of life--no lights, no smoke, nothing stirring. He wondered, Are we the only ones?

"We can't drive any farther," he said to the boy. "The road is blocked, and it looks like the bridge is caved in. I'll tell you about this place as we walk.”

Thus begins Little Worlds, Rob Amberg's third volume in his trilogy of books from Madison County, in the mountains of Western North Carolina. The first two books of the trilogy - Sodom Laurel Album and The New Road - document through photographs, oral history and narrative writing a traditional agrarian lifestyle and community and its evolution brought on by the construction of a new superhighway, improved access to the outside world, and a changing demographic. 

Little Worlds continues this story of change in Madison County but with a new twist. In many ways it is a traditional documentary photography book that utilizes photographs and journal entries to tell a factual story about aspects of life in Madison County over the last fifty years. But it’s the inclusion of speculative fiction, an imaginative look to a dystopian universe fifty years in the future through eyes from the past that brings the book its innovative energy. 

Writers and photographers shy away from mixing documentary and fiction and Little Worlds is clearly a hybrid. It began as a long-running bedtime story I was telling my children and has grown into a unique volume that includes over 150 color and black/white photographs intertwined with a 62,000 word novel. The first edition will be 1,000 copies and expected publication date is spring, 2024.