the Shadow Catcher

Reading a really good book is like dipping your hand into warm chocolate. You want the experience to last for a long time; you want to lick carefully so that you don't miss a spot. That is how I felt with this book. I can't believe that it did not win The Times' Book Prize for fiction this year. How good must that winning book be?


This is a fictional account of an author's life after completing a biography of Edward Curtis (seen to the left.) He is a famous photographer who took pictures of American Indians during the time when they were being moved to reservations; he felt they were moving toward extinction.

Remember the analogy about chocolate? This is a chocolate with many layers. Can you imagine the joy of licking away a layer and finding a layer that tastes even better. And it continues to do that until your hand is completely clean and the book is done. That's this book.

Here's a little layer for you; a personal reference, of course. The book starts in Los Angeles and has references to traffic and people in Los Angeles that were extremely amusing to me. Do you have to experience these things to get the joke? Let me know, once you've read this. Then it moves to Minnesota. That is becoming a trend in my reading, isn't it? Montana is involved at one point. Just briefly, but Wiggins captures the vastness of that space better than I've read before. Then we move to Washington. Give me a break! Did she have my itinerary? I've said it before, travel makes reading more interesting.

One of the moving forces in this book is how different elements connect. A nurse calls about the author's dead father being in a hospital, near death. You can't imagine where that plot goes. And if an intriguing plot is not enough, the language is beautiful. Ms. Wiggins can write. Forget everything I've ever said about the University of Southern California, where she is a professor. I guess they have good professors. At least one.

Finally, this book is on DEEP discount through Amazon. Don't ask me why. You should really pay extra for it because it has pictures in it that actually move the story along. But by all means, read the book.