Summary and Reviews of The Shadow Catcher by Marianne Wiggins

Media Reviews

Book Page - Alden Mudge All this may sound a little heady. But Wiggins is an adventurous and risk-taking writer with extraordinary gifts. Her scenes and descriptions are so alive that they carry us willingly forward to engage with her in her quest. What kind of person was Edward S. Curtis? Who was her father? Who am I? Wiggins offers us the beauty, excitement and perplexity of the journey and leaves us to determine the answers on our own.

The New York Times - Richard B. Woodward Wiggins ably challenges the smug idea that we can easily distinguish truth and falsehood in telling anyone’s story, especially our own.

Washington Post - Wendy Smith There are passages in Marianne Wiggins's eighth novel so piercingly beautiful that I put the book down, shook my head and simply said, "Wow."

The San Francisco Chronicle - Jesse Berrett Strictly as a piece of fiction, it's highly unsatisfactory by design, a glimpse of the limits of imagination when faced with a stubbornly unrevealing subject. The plot interrupts itself, skips over the main story and ends things hastily .... Wiggins' net effect is vertiginously enjoyable, a rambunctious puzzle-box that rewards dives into murky interpretive waters: The more effort you devote to thinking the book through, the greater its rewards.

Bob Hoover - The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Wiggins' "Twilight Zone" approach costs her valuable points as a novelist, straining, as it does, our confidence in her story-telling integrity .... That's too bad, because the Curtis' tale is beautifully told, capturing so artfully the raw landscape of the late-19th-century Northwest and the yearnings and hopes of its characters.

Cleveland Plain Dealer - Karen Schechner The increasingly far-fetched plot begins to creak, making the whole enterprise feel jury-rigged. But however scattershot, The Shadow Catcher brings into focus the inchoate issues of identity, isolation and family in the context of an iconic turn-of-the-20th-century American artist, and racks up creative brownie points as genre-bending and philosophical fiction.

The Houston Chronicle - Suzanne Ferriss Unfortunately, the connections between the two fathers appear forced, based on a series of implausible coincidences. And while engaging, Clara's history is punctuated with stereotypical moments of romance and family drama. In a novel otherwise so accomplished, these weaknesses are puzzling. Perhaps these instances of artifice were self-conscious on Wiggins' part, and the novel itself means to underscore the artificiality of any attempt at narrative wholeness.

The Seattle Times - David Laskin Is there some deep meaning lurking here about shadows, negatives, the fast-and-loose interplay between fiction and history, identity and dream? And how does any of this relate to the iconic, impossible photographer at the center of her book? Wiser reviewers than I may know the answers. By the time I finished The Shadow Catcher, I had pretty much ceased to care about — — or believe in — any of it.

Booklist - Elizabeth Dickie Starred Review. Wiggins is a writer who paints elegant pictures with words. So who better to tell the story of Edward Sheriff Curtis, the enigmatic photographer of the American West, protege of J. P. Morgan, and friend of Theodore Roosevelt? .... This creative novel will not disappoint.

Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Suffused with Marianne's crackling social commentary and deceptively breezy self-discovery, Wiggins's eighth novel is a heartfelt tour de force.

Reader Reviews

Books with similar themes

• Historical Fiction
  
• USA
  
• Early 20th Century
  
• Contemporary