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Recapture
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The Utah Canyons WildMall gives tourists exactly what they want. An archivist preserves a rare map of a vanished Lake Tahoe. The Grand Canyon can only be visited in replica form. These stories—lyrical, deadpan, surreal—blur the line between the natural world and the world we make.
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Something in the voice and occasional odd humor of these stories seemed so familiar—like remembering what it was like to be thirty, and a woman, in love with a vanishing West. Or a changing West. And a changing sense of self. It takes guts to explore that terrain. I admire Olsen's nerve. My favorite story is "Everywhen."
There is tenderness here, in these short tales of changed landscapes (both geographic and human) recaptured in clean strong prose. ...more
There is tenderness here, in these short tales of changed landscapes (both geographic and human) recaptured in clean strong prose. ...more
Wonderful. When I won this book through First Reads, I didn't know what to expect. Maybe that's why I enjoyed it so much. You can feel the West in these stories, some of which get you thinking long after you've finished them.
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This is a very engaging collection of short stories by a very talented writer. Her background in museum and archaeological research in the American Southwest enriches her tales with a deep grounding in the cultural and natural history of the region.
Really enjoyed this. Every page a delight. Admittedly, this very specific corner of the world holds a special attraction for me -- we've been visiting SE Utah since the late 60s, and my in-laws lived in Moab for some 25 years. My wife, indeed our whole family, plus a select group of friends older and younger than ourselves, fell in love with the high desert landscape, the air, the redrock, the contradictory sense of timelessness and antiquity....
But what Olsen has captured/recaptured here is not ...more
But what Olsen has captured/recaptured here is not ...more
Great book to keep in your bag, or have in the back of your pocket for when you need a quick escape.
Erica Olsen's RECAPTURE & Other Stories is more than a collection of "other stories;" it's a curation of artifacts around themes of loss, searching and memory. The motif of return keeps returning.
Relationships—if they can be found in these stories—are broken, in the process of breaking or being partially assembled from the materials found on site.
Some of the pieces run barely a page or two; one is more than half footnotes. The fragments don't cohere to make a single object, but like lipid-coate ...more
Relationships—if they can be found in these stories—are broken, in the process of breaking or being partially assembled from the materials found on site.
Some of the pieces run barely a page or two; one is more than half footnotes. The fragments don't cohere to make a single object, but like lipid-coate ...more
read my full review @ http://bit.ly/SRMuHe
My opinion: In my humble opinion, it takes a special person to have the skill set necessary to write short stories and not treat them as off-shoots of full length novels. Short stories require a conciseness while respecting the characters and setting, in doing justice to them and not underwriting who they are while "telling" the story. There is also a respect which is imperative in not underwriting the story, as well. Olsen is one of these authors. Her c ...more
My opinion: In my humble opinion, it takes a special person to have the skill set necessary to write short stories and not treat them as off-shoots of full length novels. Short stories require a conciseness while respecting the characters and setting, in doing justice to them and not underwriting who they are while "telling" the story. There is also a respect which is imperative in not underwriting the story, as well. Olsen is one of these authors. Her c ...more
This small book filled with short stories is jam-packed with breathtaking writing. From the idea of only visiting the Grand Canyon through a replica form to an archaeologist who returns home to find his home only cinders..each story is detailed enough to give you a sense of nature and of the Southwest. The characters are essential to the sometimes ironic and thought-provoking situations.
With photographs, memories and more, who is to say what is real and what is not? With our world and that of n ...more
With photographs, memories and more, who is to say what is real and what is not? With our world and that of n ...more
Sep 08, 2013
David Pace
added it
The advantage to this book is that it's a series of stories that you can jump around and pick out of sequence. Some of them are VERY short. Olsen has a wry view of how the American West is experience, by Americans in general, but even, perhaps especially by Westerners themselves. This is a funny, ironic, sometimes disturbing book of tales that point to the flashpoints of contemporary Western experience, especially as it relates to conservation, the environmental ethic and the country's relentles
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Readers also enjoyed
Erica Olsen lives in the Four Corners area. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana. Her work has received awards including the 2011 Barthelme Prize for Short Prose (for “Grand Canyon II,” included in Recapture), a Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and residencies at Ucross and the Center for Land Use Interpretatio
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