OUTHOUSES OF THE WEST

(Nimbus, 1988; ISBN 0-921054-09-2; repr. Firefly, 2000; ISBN 1-55209-523-1)

By Sherman Hines and Silver Donald Cameron

Fundamentally a collection of Sherman Hines photographs, this book contains extended – and hilarious – captions and commentaries by Silver Donald Cameron. It is, Cameron writes, “a gesture of reconciliation and restitution” to the West for Hines’ earlier book, Outhouses of the East, “which put all the cowhands in a flap. Westerners are weary of hearing that their whole society is, at bottom, derived from Eastern roots. To them, glory stories of the fisherman’s biffy seemed worse than cheeky. Sherman’s book struck them as a bum rap.” The outhouses include such architectural wonders as the Trapper Crapper, Bandido’s Half-Moon Hideout, The Bear Minimum, The Bau/out/haus, The Leaning Tower, Hamlet’s Head, The Cosmic Can and The Deacon’s Masterpiece.