America the Abandoned

“Unlike much so-called ruin porn—soulless images that glamorize the blight they showcase—Sansivero’s photos bring out the humanity of the people who once occupied these buildings. . . . His photographs recall the eerie images of abandoned buildings in Chernobyl after the 1986 nuclear accident. But no cataclysmic disaster befell the houses in this book. Instead, what we see is the creeping decay of much of American life. Ghostly images of vacant homes, sensitively captured.”

“Even long-neglected spaces clearly suggest the shape of the lives they once contained. . . . Providing a few sentences beneath each photo, Sansivero frames each space as a time capsule of a person’s past, simultaneously recognizing life’s ephemerality and reminding readers to cherish the ‘little things we hold so dear, and that they will come and go, like those of others before us.’ Alternately moving, eerie, and dramatic, it’s both a visual spectacle and a vibrant ode to forgotten lives.”—Publishers Weekly

"The texture of ruin with the radiance of Technicolor. A classic in the urbex catalog."—Dylan Thuras, cofounder of Atlas Obscura

"America the Abandoned captures an amorphous time between the past and the future at once frozen in time and ever-changing. Brian's vision of America is a place I want to curl up in and never leave."—Elizabeth Finkelstein, founder of Cheap Old Houses

“Bryan Sansivero illuminates all the haunted beauty of  America’s deserted homes in his new book. He finds unsettled spirits among the ruin, all of which he photographs in sumptuous color. In short, his photographs manage to inhabit the souls of the people who once lived there.”—Laura Holson, writer, traveler, and founder of The Box Sessions