Review – Princeton by Joe Shay

Softcover | 8.5 x 11 inches | 40 pages | 30 photographs | Orphan Press, 2018

“This is a record of one epic evening in Princeton, West Virginia.”

This is probably one of my favorite photobooks of 2018. I reckon that technically it’s a zine, but it’s one of the finest books I’ve seen this year. Full disclosure: Joe Shay sent me a copy of Princeton in August to have a look at. I’ve since ordered another copy with a three-image portfolio, which you can get here.

I first became familiar with Shay’s work back in 2014, when he submitted work from Virginia to the Looking at Appalachia project. He came to the opening of the traveling print exhibit in Spartanburg, South Carolina a year later.

“My experience with wrestling began in Tennessee when I was probably 10 or 12 years old. The whole family would load up in a green Ford van and make our way to the National Guard Armory…” Shay writes in the introduction of Princeton. When I spoke with him by phone about his work in Princeton, I shared my childhood memories of watching wrestling matches at the Williamson Field House when the Junkyard Dog, Tommy “Wildfire” Rich, and the Iron Sheik came to town. As a kid, that was a magical time.

Princeton took me right back to my childhood, to those times long past of watching what Granddad called “grunt and groan” on TV and being glued to my seat. Somewhere, I knew it was entertainment, but it seemed more real than Santa Claus.

You can catch Shay at the Morgantown Zine Festival on Saturday, 6 October 2018. He’ll have copies of Princeton available for purchase. I highly recommend getting a copy or two.