The Shadow Catcher: A Novel

The Shadow Catcher: A Novel
by Marianne Wiggins

The Shadow Catcher: A Novel
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Book Summary Information

Author: Marianne Wiggins
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-03
ISBN: 0743265211
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Book Reviews of The Shadow Catcher: A Novel

Book Review: why the narrative device?
Summary: 3 Stars

The parts of this novel that have to do with the photographer Edward Curtis and his wife and other family really sing; however, why do we need to read the quasi-autobiography of the author herself? Wiggins, an English professor at USC, is an award-winning writer (who once was married to Salman Rushdie) apparently enthralled to early photography (also see: Evidence of Things Unseen: A Novel). At first, I fully bought into the L. A. narrative and the lunch with the agent and producer, but by the ending of this book, the coincidental namings [Curtis Edwards, really!!!] and findings and meetings became too much.

Rather, I would have liked to read more about Curtis and his life in the manner that Wiggins prepares us for in the beginning. There must have been tons of other material that Wiggins threw out; unfortunately, the last few decades of the man's life are covered in paragraphs, not chapters or pages.

So, while I loved the Curtis "bio" up to the point where he married, the rest of his life seems swallowed by the narrative device Wiggins creates that seems to be mostly about herself. Sorry, I just don't get the point.

Summary of The Shadow Catcher: A Novel

Following her National Book Award finalist, Evidence of Things Unseen, Marianne Wiggins turns her extraordinary literary imagination to the American West, where the life of legendary photographer Edward S. Curtis is the basis for a resonant exploration of history and family, landscape and legacy.

The Shadow Catcher dramatically inhabits the space where past and present intersect, seamlessly interweaving narratives from two different eras: the first fraught passion between turn-of-the-twentieth-century icon Edward Curtis (1868-1952) and his muse-wife, Clara; and a twenty-first-century journey of redemption.

Narrated in the first person by a reimagined writer named Marianne Wiggins, the novel begins in Hollywood, where top producers are eager to sentimentalize the complicated life of Edward Curtis as a sunny biopic: "It's got the outdoors. It's got adventure. It's got the do-good element." Yet, contrary to Curtis's esteemed public reputation as servant to his nation, the artist was an absent husband and disappearing father. Jump to the next generation, when Marianne's own father, John Wiggins (1920-1970), would live and die in equal thrall to the impulse of wanderlust.

Were the two men running from or running to? Dodging the false beacons of memory and legend, Marianne amasses disparate clues -- photographs and hospital records, newspaper clippings and a rare white turquoise bracelet -- to recover those moments that went unrecorded, "to hear the words only the silent ones can speak." The Shadow Catcher, fueled by the great American passions for love and land and family, chases the silhouettes of our collective history into the bright light of the present.

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