Photo: to do with light. Phyto: plants and flowers. Proto: the first, the original. Nitro: it blows up.

Photo, Phyto, Proto, Nitro: published in Nov 2023 by Sagging Meniscus Press; click for details of the best way to order it wherever you live. I had a launch party in Edinburgh, giving a talk called ‘Snap! The shark as model photographist,’ about metaphor etc.

I’ll update which bookshops are stocking; or inquire within, at your local bookseller.

The critics say:

“her brilliant monograph is sure to become a durable classic”

“from Agamemnon to algae, from Hiroshima to Hergé”

“McCarthy approaches writing as a generous reader, as a detective, as a rummager among archives, as an archaeologist, as a photographic developing agent”

“In this sequel to her amazing Sharks, Death, Surfers, Melissa McCarthy shifts the focus to photography and, as its jingle title advertises, makes completely new stopovers and connections that indelibly change how we look at and through the medium.”

“Like Montaigne writing about the destruction of the Aztec empire, McCarthy constructs her text as a vehicle in which to move across the corpse-strewn wastelands and oceans of human history”

and

“Fucking hell McCarthy – that is top notch.”