In the cemetery industry, “perpetual care” guarantees the long-term upkeep of a gravestone and its plot. Clay Maxwell Jordan inverts the phrase, applying it with poignant irony to an American landscape that has largely failed to protect its citizens. The book turns to those existing on the periphery, subjects and landscapes caught in the wake of the “rugged individual” mythos, a distinctly American ethos calcified into a precarious reality. Through striking, enigmatic compositions Jordan creates a visual poem about vulnerability and isolation, touching on the religious, the existential and the social realities of modern America.