Click Click Snap is a 2007 book by Sean McGowan

Sean McGowan

Sean Michael McGowan is one of the few American writers to publish photographic novels...

. It is a work of literary nonfiction

Creative nonfiction

Creative nonfiction is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contrasts with other nonfiction, such as technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact, but is not primarily written in service...

 and a photographic novel (but not a photo novel).

The book has been released into the public domain

Public domain

Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

. The full book can be read for free (see source).

Synopsis

Click Click Snap is written in first person prose. In the book, Sean McGowan travels through Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

, Bent Jbail, Beirut

Beirut

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

, Damascus

Damascus

Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

, The West Bank, Petra

Petra

Petra is a historical and archaeological city in the Jordanian governorate of Ma'an that is famous for its rock cut architecture and water conduits system. Established sometime around the 6th century BC as the capital city of the Nabataeans, it is a symbol of Jordan as well as its most visited...

, and Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

; completing the eight chapters of the book, respectively. Its diverse (and, arguably, scattered) topics mainly include the neuroscience of art, war, belief, racism.

Unusually, each chapter is written as a self-sustaining joke

Joke

A joke is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices...

, where more serious topics seemingly arise incidentally. Specific incidences include urinating on the Temple of Artemis

Temple of Artemis

The Temple of Artemis , also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to a goddess Greeks identified as Artemis and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was situated at Ephesus , and was completely rebuilt three times before its eventual destruction...

 to illustrate the benefits of biological satisfaction and stealing a federal election ballot at gunpoint during the 2007 elections in Syria

Syrian presidential election, 2007

A referendum to confirm the presidential candidate Bashar al-Assad was held in Syria on 27 May 2007, after the People's Council of Syria voted to propose the incumbent for a second term on 10 May 2007. It was widely believed that the elections were rigged...

to show "...even though there is such a thing as a ballot with only one name on it, there is no such thing as a clear choice."

External links

• Official Homepage
• Click Click Snap Online & Searchable HTML Version
• Click Click Snap PDF version of the entire novel
• Sean McGowan's Homepage
• ISBN 978-0-615-15542-5.