First published 2007
Marianne Wiggins sits in Hollywood meetings where producers want to turn photographer Edward Curtis into feel-good entertainment. They see adventure and do-good stories in his famous portraits of Native Americans from the early 1900s. Marianne sees something darker. Curtis abandoned his wife Clara and children to chase his artistic vision across the American West. Her own father John Wiggins did the same thing, disappearing from family life until his death in 1970. Both men were captivated by wanderlust, but Marianne cannot tell if they were running toward something or away from it. She collects fragments from both lives: Curtis photographs, hospital records, newspaper clippings, a white turquoise bracelet. These pieces might reveal what the official stories hide. As Marianne digs deeper into the parallel lives of these two men, she confronts the costs of American dreams built on movement and escape.
Genres: biography, family, american-fiction, 20th-century, american, biography-memoir, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, unreliable-narrator
Setting: American West, Hollywood
Period: Early 1900s, 1970
336 pages · Kindle Edition · Simon Schuster