Egan has found yet another great subject, and has crafted yet another great narrative around it." - S.C. It is also a book about the extreme personal cost of outsized ambition.
A sweeping tale about two vanishing ways of life." - Wall Street Journal "A stirring and affectionate portrait of an underknown figure." - The New York Times Book Review " Short Nights is not only the marvelous and rollicking account of life of one of America's extraordinary photographers. Egan fills his chronicle with bright turns of phrase and radiant descriptions. This is a story for the ages." -Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic "An obsessive genius neglects his personal life and business matters to pursue a great white whale. It's a familiar tale and the essential narrative of Egan's terrific biography. * A New York Times Notable Book *An Amazon Best Book * A Publishers Weekly Best Book * A Christian Science Monitor Best Book "In this hauntingly beautiful book, Egan brings Curtis to life as vividly and with as much depth, heart and understanding as Curtis himself put into his timeless portraits. In the process, the charming rogue with the grade school education created the most definitive archive of the American Indian.
Curtis would amass more than 40,000 photographs and 10,000 audio recordings, and he is credited with making the first narrative documentary film. And the undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate. It took tremendous perseverance - ten years alone to persuade the Hopi to allow him to observe their Snake Dance ceremony. But when he was thirty-two years old, in 1900, he gave it all up to pursue his Great Idea: to capture on film the continent’s original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared.Ĭurtis spent the next three decades documenting the stories and rituals of more than eighty North American tribes. He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudeville stars, leading thinkers. Egan’s spirited biography might just bring the recognition that eluded him in life.” - The Washington PostĮdward Curtis was charismatic, handsome, a passionate mountaineer, and a famous portrait photographer, the Annie Leibovitz of his time. “A vivid exploration of one man's lifelong obsession with an idea. New York Times bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Timothy Egan reveals the life story of the man determined to preserve a people and culture in Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis.
A Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
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