The large format pages combine abstract organic drawings, constructivistic architectural details and mysterious phrases all set in lowercase typography. Subtitled "Lo Spirito della Storia Naturale," this book was printed for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. Nancy Princenthal reviewed this book in the periodical On Paper V.1,No.4 and stateid that "on faithful expression and artifice, memory and its loss, and - to return to the spirit of the season - the rhythms of personal attraction and its loss, not many recent books compare to Shelagh Keeley's finely wrought Desire and the Importance of Failure...A second title, lo spirito della storia naturale, appears on the back cover of this big, shiny-white hardbound volume, indicating that it can be read in two directions. A third possibility is to start at midpoint, where a centerfold combines a photograph of an architectural detail with a grisly, blood-red abstract drawing by Keeley...Sometimes the images are doubled and mirrored, or jump the gutter of two-page spreads, and duotone and offset images overlap, as do original drawings with found photographs and other mechanical reproductions." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.