This is NOT a story about Edward Curtis. This is a novel about Clara Curtis and other woman left behind by absent fathers and husbands. Interwoven with this story is the story of Marianne Wiggins whose father abandon her by committing suicide.

“Who’s to blame if men keep taking off, lighting out for unknown territories? Must be the woman’s fault. Must be something that the woman did or did not do.”

Wiggins is a wonderful writer; some of the passages are reminiscent of Whitman. "...I perceive a hopeful distant note-the sound my country makes-a note so confirming and annunciatory that it seems to bend into itself, bend into its own impending future like an announcing angel comin round the mountain, bend the way the shadow bends, conforming to the curvature of the earth, wailing gently through the night." ( )

The semi-historical, fictional story of Edward Curtis, famous photographer of Indians west of the Mississippi, that parallels that of the author's father. Beautiful prose, as usual from Wiggins and surprising humor. Excellent read. ( )

There were parts of this book I loved a lot, but the ending seemed a bit too contrived, and I didn't like how the historical part of the book was quickly wrapped up, like there wasn't time to properly close both storylines. I would recommend it though, I really enjoyed the first half or more. ( )

For two years Marianne Wiggins traveled the country doggedly researching Edward Curtis, the famous and highly controversial American Indian photographer and ethnologist. Wiggins wanted to write a novel about this man. She wanted to get inside him—understand him, and write a novel that exposed the real human being behind the legend.

Curtis’ life only recently became public domain: he is dead and all his children are dead. Now, he is fair fodder for historical novelists. But Wiggins is not a genre historical novelist. She is a gifted literary novelist, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, a writer of formidable originality. Why would she undertake a project like this? What alchemy did she have in mind?

When she began her quest to dig into Curtis’ life, Wiggins was in love with the idea of the man—the handsome, creative, rugged, bigger-than-life, self-made frontiersman. But the more she researched, the more she began to dislike him—the more she wanted to drop the project altogether. But she persisted, and this persistence actually becomes an integral part of the novel. In looking for the story in Curtis, she finds the story in herself, her own life, her own relationship to her father. Wiggins’ historical novel about Edward Curtis eventually leads us deep into the psychology of magical explaining—of myth making for mental health’s sake. The result is pure literary gold.

So what alchemy does Wiggins ultimately deliver in this novel? The work is actually two novels in one: one set in Curtis’ early years and the other set in the author’s present. The construction is liberating—pure magic pops up unexpectedly throughout. Wiggins creates a compelling, transcendent, soaring work of fiction. So breathtaking is Wiggins’ prose, that at times I found myself stopping, closing my eyes, and just savoring the aching perfection of a passage. Here is prose that is sparkling, humorous, ironic, soaring, transcendent—and yet at the same time it is prose that finds room for snapping social commentary and for me, most enjoyable of all, life-affirming thematic insights. I was spellbound from the first few pages.

Wiggins begins her novel in the present day, with herself as the first-person narrator. Wiggins (the character) has written a book about Edward Curtis and her agent arranges an appointment with some Hollywood types who want to option her book for a movie. She arrives home after the interview, to find a series of mysterious messages from a hospital in Las Vegas. They have an unconscious, near-death patient in their ICU who the hospital identifies as Wiggins’ father. But Wiggins knows that her father unmistakably committed suicide decades earlier. Who is this imposter? Why has he stolen her father’s identity? Why does he carry a newspaper article about her in his wallet? And so the mystery begins.

But in this short opening section, Wiggins also pulls out the stops—she entertains the reader with a full symphony of literary talents. The overture is a soaring love song to America, the country in her heart, and to Los Angeles, the city in her soul. She follows this with humorous and biting social commentary about the movie-making business. If you read this brief opening section and are not thoroughly won over by this novel…well, all I can say is that this work is not for you. But it had me from the first page!

Enveloped inside this present-day story, we find the other novel. This second novel is presented in two long sections, with a brief visit to the present-day story in between. The inner novel is a third-person narrative written in a completely different tone—somber, haunting, slow. The focus is full-on characterization. This is prototypical, heart-wrenching, transcendent historical fiction and it tells the early life of Edward Curtis from the point of view of his long-suffering wife, Clara. Through Clara’s life, from the woman’s point of view, Wiggins is able to unmask part, but not all, of the man who Curtis was underneath the legend.

Clara’s life with Curtis was brief. Wiggins uses her present-day narrative to explain important aspects of Curtis’ later years. Ultimately, she uses this plot line to provide the evidence that finally pulls the curtain aside and reveals what may only have been guessed at before.

In the end, this is a novel about myth-making, magical explaining—what we all do, everyday, to maintain our mental health. How we reinvent the truth, so we can live within it. This is a book about children of absent fathers, how these children desperately cling to myths about their fathers in order to help them live with the reality of their abandonment. It is also about how these children are destined forever to try to win their fathers’ attention and approval. It is a novel about the impossibility of knowing anyone’s motives, even one’s own. It is a novel about how the Curtis children saw their father as a man who could do no harm, even when wrong was all he ever did. It is novel about how our species creates whatever stories we need just so we can cope.

In the end, Marianne Wiggins does a magnificent job of bringing the complex portrait of Edward Curtis to life. When the book ends, we feel we know this man—his personality, what drives him. As a bonus, we start questioning our own lives—trying to uncover the magical explaining in our own everyday lives. Do our myths truly help us, or are we better off knowing and living with the real truth? Can we ever know the truth?

This is not a book for everyone. Some readers will be offended by the license that Wiggins takes with Curtis’ life. Others will be put off by the thematic digressions that move the reader away from the compelling plot. These same readers will probably be unimpressed with the great richness these thematic digressions provide. I predict that women will love this novel more than men because it gives an unabashedly woman’s point of view about significant matters of the heart. All this being said, I recommend this work highly. I can easily see why Wiggins was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (for another, earlier work). I have no doubt that she will go on to achieve greater national recognition in the future. ( )

the author tries a different format: introducing photo's into text; fictionalizing her life and the life of historical photographer Edward Curtis.
Neither the story or the writing engaged me. ( )