Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 16, 1995                   TAG: 9504140018
SECTION: BOOK                    PAGE: F-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO BOOK PAGE EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TWO FAMOUS EAST COAST ISLANDS; TWO PICTURE BOOKS

KEY WEST COLOR. By Alan S. Maltz. Light Flight Publications. $50.

Here are two fine, beautifully laid out picture books of East Coast islands, probably the two most famous. Both are small; both have literary-artistic reputations. The books could hardly be more different.

Hollins graduate Cary Hazlegrove has photographed Nantucket at different times of the year to capture seasonal differences. As a resort island, its most obvious changes come with the presence and absence of tourists. The larger changes, though, come with the calendar. As Hazlegrove writes in the preface, "Spring arrives a week before summer and summer lasts only two and a half months. Fall is short-lived and winter lasts forever."

Winter is where her book is at its best. There's nothing wrong with the rest of it - the cranberry bogs and beach umbrellas, wisteria and privet, overhead shots of lighthouses and sandspits - but the winter pictures make it seem real. You can hear the keening wind in the dark sky and feel the textures of snow and sand.

Even in its lightest moments, "Nantucket" has a cool, reserved Yankee formality. The ornamental wreath is a recurring image. "Key West Light," on the other hand, is often tacky and never ashamed. Its central image is a sunset, the gaudier the better, with lots of reds and purples in the clouds.

Photographer Alan Maltz includes the rest of the expected cliches - flowers, birds, seascapes, boats - and he presses each one of them to its limit. His "Bald Eagle on Boca Chica," for example, could be part of an NRA campaign. He also does inventive work with the funky local architecture and automotive art, and his portraits of locals are just as eccentric and eclectic as the rest of the book. Taken together, his pictures go beyond the Margaritaville stereotypes to show something of the people who live and work on Key West.

OK, neither "Nantucket" nor "Key West Color" is as enjoyable as a week at the beach, but they will make you look forward to the next vacation.

Book signing by author

On Thursday from 12 to 2 p.m., Cary Hazlegrove will sign copies of "Nantucket" at R.S.V.P. Limited Bookstore in Piccadilly Square, 3177 Franklin Road.