Literary Affairs Invites you to a Book Group Discussion of the novel The Shadow Catcher. Join the author Marianne Wiggins and facilitator Julie Robinson as they discuss Wiggins' most recent novel. The Shadow Catcher is a fascinating blend of memoir, historical fiction and biography. This thought provoking novel integrates the actual photographs of Edward S. Curtis into the text to create a work of art. This special event is being hosted by The Bruce Kapson Gallery and guests will have the exclusive opportunity to see and learn about the historic photographs and original Copper Photogravure Plates of Edward S. Curtis.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marianne Wiggins was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and has lived in Brussels, Rome, Paris, and London. She is the author of ten books of fiction, including John Dollar and Evidence of Things Unseen, for which she was a National Book Award finalist in fiction, as well as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won an NEA grant, the Whiting Writers' Award, and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. She is Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

ABOUT THE GALLERY

The Bruce Kapson Gallery is the expert source for the vintage original works of Edward S. Curtis. Established in 1982, the Bruce Kapson Gallery has been an important center for private collectors nationally and internationally for the past 26 years.

Moreover, owner Bruce Kapson, alone among his peers, has worked as a Curtis curator and independent research scholar as well as a consultant to both academia and government.

In 2002, after 17 years as a mainstay Santa Monica, California gallery, the Bruce Kapson Gallery closed its doors to the public and became solely a private dealer and consultant.

The Bruce Kapson Gallery is now honored to announce it is the exclusive distributor of The Curtis Collection archive of Edward S. Curtis' Original Copper Photogravure Plates from his work The North American Indian. These truly historic works have never before been available for sale or purchase on an individual basis in their 102-year history.

For more information:
The Bruce Kapson Gallery
The Curtis Collection


BEYOND THE BOOK

Reading Guide questions for The Shadow Catcher
Video of Marianne Wiggins discussing her novel
New York Times Book Review
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
Washington Post Book Review
Book Page Review
Barnes & Noble Meet the Writers Interview of Marianne Wiggins
Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian