To Catch the Lightning: A Novel of American Dreaming [Paperback]

Alan Cheuse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2009

The critically acclaimed winner of the Grub Street National Book Prize for Fiction

" Until someone tells you, you never know in whose dreams you appear..."
—from the prologue

Beginning in the late 1890s, Edward Sheriff Curtis embarked on an overwhelming odyssey to document and photograph the fading way of life of the American Indian. In To Catch the Lightning, Alan Cheuse creates a remarkable portrait of the man who would become a legend. Curtis turned his lens on a landscape of unparalleled beauty and tradition, and in so doing, became the architect of the finest lasting visual record of a culture close to extinction.

Here is a haunting tale of the struggle between ambition and duty and a testament to the power of the sacrifices we make for the dreams that compel us.

"Digs deep into the mystery and sacrifice and selfishness of creative vision."
Charles Frazier

"A worthy effort...illuminating unknown corners of a great photographer's life."
Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Longtime NPR commentator Cheuse returns with his ambitious if not entirely successful ninth book, a novel based on the life of Edward Curtis, the photographer who in 1904 dedicated his life to creating a pictorial record of Native American tribes. Narrated by Curtis's assistant, William Myers, the novel also tells the story of Jimmy Fly-wing, a Plains Indian who leaves his tribe to learn the ways of the white man and aids Curtis in his quest. Curtis's passion for his project is palpable, and his dedication forces him to choose between his family and his work. Though he becomes estranged from his wife, Clara, he is rewarded by the faith and gratitude of many of the peoples he photographed and by glimpses into secret tribal traditions. Though the historical material is often compelling, the novel's focus can diffuse as Cheuse moves between the narrative strands and struggles to keep the story moving over 50 years. When not stuck in the doldrums, the narrative brims with keen insight. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Edward S. Curtis is widely known through his photographic encyclopedia of North America's tribal peoples, but little is known of the man himself. NPR commentator Cheuse (The Fires; The Light Possessed) envisions the backstory in his new novel. Much of the narration falls to William Myers, the classics scholar recruited to accompany Curtis because of his facility with languages. Some chapters are credited to Jimmy Fly-Wing, a Native American who studied his own people through the newly defined discipline of anthropology at the University of Chicago. And Curtis's wife, Clara, weighs in with poignant reflections on raising a family and running a portrait studio while her husband devotes himself to his overwhelming love, a project that takes him into remote parts of America as well as its larger cities; raising funds for the next trip from the likes of Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan takes as much time and work as the journeys and photographs themselves. Cheuse does an admirable job of invoking a period, a quest, and the spiritual convergence of times ancient and modern. Recommended for popular reading collections.—Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical and Community Coll., OH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark; Reprint edition (October 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402221126
• ISBN-13: 978-1402221125
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,884,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ALAN CHEUSE


"The Voice of Books on National Public Radio"--that's how novelist, essayist and story writer Alan Cheuse has been described. For over twenty-five years, Cheuse has been "reading for America" every week on NPR, and he's also been writing a number of books of his own, and teaching the art of narrative and literature at George Mason University for over twenty years.
He is the author of the novels The Bohemians, The Grandmothers' Club and The Light Possessed. His latest novel, To Catch the Lightning (winner of the 2009 Grub Street Prize for Fiction), follows the career of turn of the century photographer Edward S. Curtis and his quest to photograph the western tribes of North America. He is also the author of several collections of short fiction and a pair of novellas published under the title The Fires. He is the co-editor with Nicholas Delbanco of Talking Horse: Bernard Malamud on Life and Art, and co-author with Delbanco of Literature: Craft & Voice, a major newly published introduction to college literary study, and also the co-editor of Writers Workshop in a Book: The Squaw Valley Community of Writers on the Art of Fiction, and editor of Listening to Ourselves: Great American Short Fiction.
Cheuse's essays, short stories, and reviews have appeared in numerous places, such as The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, World Literature Today, The Antioch Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and other venues. His essay collection, Listening to the Page, appeared in 2001. His collected travel essays came out in June 2009 under the title A Trance After Breakfast.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep, moving, well worth reading., November 19, 2008

By 

365andMe - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: To Catch the Lightning: A Novel of American Dreaming (Hardcover)

"To Catch the Lightning" by Alan Cheuse, is a sad, melancholic novel about passing. It's about the passing of the Indian way of life, the passing of a marriage, and the passing of a lifetime. It is about a man's destiny and his frailties and the effects on his family and the lives of people around him. It is about prophecy, signs, dreams and visions.

Alan Cheuse explores the true life mission of Edward Curtis who photographed and documented the existing North American Indian tribes of 1900's. It was written in 3 points of view, Edward Curtis, William Meyers, his assistant who learned, translated, and wrote the traditions, and Jimmy fly-wing, a troubled Indian genius, part medicine man, part college educated. Cheuse writes in a literary style which paces the story through certain episodes during the decades that took Curtis to complete his work and his life.

The settings allowed me to put what was happening in historical context. The descriptions of the tribes and ceremonies are true to life. What each man's hopes, dreams, and fears gave this novel a tragic flavor, like something from the early Greeks, but at the ending of the Old West frontier and the beginning of the modern era.

I could not read this at one setting. I needed some time between settle down and reflect over what was happening. This novel made me ponder on some of my decisions and directions in life and what part the divine had in guiding me. This is a deep novel and worth the read.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars American Dreamer, December 5, 2008

By 

Sam Sattler (Spring, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: To Catch the Lightning: A Novel of American Dreaming (Hardcover)

When he began taking photographs of Native Americans in the Western United States in 1904, Edward Curtis could not have imagined that he was beginning the project that would last him for the rest of his working life. Curtis became so obsessed with making a complete pictorial record of Native American tribes that he found himself choosing the project over his family any time that the two came into conflict. Ultimately, he would lose his wife, his photography business, and most of his other assets because he allowed his photographs and the books he published to become the most important things in his life - everything else was secondary.

In "To Catch the Lightning: A Novel of American Dreaming," Alan Cheuse uses longtime Curtis assistant William Myers and American Indian Jimmy Fly-wing to tell Edward Curtis's story. Myers served as translator and transcriber for Curtis, making it possible for the pair to record the ancient Indian legends, stories, songs and history that turned Curtis's project into so much more than just a collection of magnificent photographs. Fly-wing, a Plains Indian who out of curiosity climbed into the first train he ever saw and rode it all the way to Chicago, was an assistant of a different type, riding ahead of the party in order to locate Indian villages and build goodwill among the Indians about Curtis and his camera.

Curtis's passion to visually record a society rapidly moving toward extinction was not well-rewarded during his lifetime despite the fact that much of his early work was financed by J.P. Morgan or that Teddy Roosevelt provided the forward for his series of books. After Morgan's death, whenever Curtis was not actually in the field, he fought to keep the project alive by raising whatever money he could in the big cities of the East, further limiting the time he could spend at home and greatly adding to his wife Clara's burden of raising their family and keeping their local photo studio in business entirely on her own.

"To Catch the Lightning" has a dramatic story to tell but it tells that story unevenly. At times the narrative races along with an excitement and tension perfect for the life led by this American dreamer. At other times, particularly during the long dream sequences of Jimmy Fly-wing and Curtis himself, the pace becomes sluggish and somewhat confusing, causing the book to sputter a bit before it regains its rhythm. Despite its uneven pacing, however, "To Catch the Lightning" offers worthy insights and explanations to help explain a man so willing to forsake his wife and children for a dream, a dream that consumed his entire lifetime, and one for which he will long be remembered.

Whether or not Curtis made the right choice for himself is certainly debatable. What is not debatable is that American history is richer and better documented because of the path he chose to follow.