<div>A &ldquo;dazzling first novel&rdquo; about Japanese Americans and their Wyoming neighbors in the era of WWII internment camps (Chicago Tribune). A renowned chronicler of life in the West, Gretel Ehrlich turns her talents to a moment in history when American citizens were set against each other, offering &ldquo;a novel full of immense poetic feeling for the internal lives of its varied characters and the sublime high plains landscape that is its backdrop&rdquo; (The New York Times Book Review). This is the story of Kai, a graduate student reunited with his old-fashioned parents in the most painful way possible; Mariko, a gifted artist; Mariko&rsquo;s husband, a political dissident; and her aging grandfather, a Noh mask carver from Kyoto. It is also the story of McKay, who runs his family farm outside the nearby town; Pinkey, an alcoholic cowboy; and Madeleine, whose soldier husband is missing in the Pacific. Most of all, Heart Mountain is about what happens when these two groups collide. Politics, loyalty, history, love&mdash;soon the bedrocks of society will seem as transient and fleeting as life itself. Set at the real-life Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, this powerful novel paints &ldquo;a sweeping, yet finely shaded portrait of a real West unfolding in historical time&rdquo; (The Christian Science Monitor). </div>

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Heart Mountain

<div>These transcendent, lyrical essays on the West announced Gretel Ehrlich as a major American writer&mdash;&ldquo;Wyoming has found its Whitman&rdquo; (Annie Dillard). Poet and filmmaker Gretel Ehrlich went to Wyoming in 1975 to make the first in a series of documentaries when her partner died. Ehrlich stayed on and found she couldn&rsquo;t leave. The Solace of Open Spaces is a chronicle of her first years on &ldquo;the planet of Wyoming,&rdquo; a personal journey into a place, a feeling, and a way of life. Ehrlich captures both the otherworldly beauty and cruelty of the natural forces&mdash;the harsh wind, bitter cold, and swiftly changing seasons&mdash;in the remote reaches of the American West. She brings depth, tenderness, and humor to her portraits of the peculiar souls who also call it home: hermits and ranchers, rodeo cowboys and schoolteachers, dreamers and realists. Together, these essays form an evocative and vibrant tribute to the life Ehrlich chose and the geography she loves. Originally written as journal entries addressed to a friend, The Solace of Open Spaces is raw, meditative, electrifying, and uncommonly wise. In prose &ldquo;as expansive as a Wyoming vista, as charged as a bolt of prairie lightning,&rdquo; Ehrlich explores the magical interplay between our interior lives and the world around us (Newsday). </div>

The Solace of Open Spaces

<div>Ten essays on nature, ritual, and philosophy &ldquo;that are so point-blank vital you nearly need to put the book down to settle yourself&rdquo; (San Francisco Chronicle). Gretel Ehrlich&rsquo;s world is one of solitude and wonder, pain and beauty, and these elements give life to her stunning prose. Ever since her acclaimed debut, The Solace of Open Spaces, she has illuminated the particular qualities of nature and the self with graceful precision. In Islands, the Universe, Home, Ehrlich expands her explorations, traveling to the remote reaches of the earth and deep into her soul. She tells of a voyage of discovery in northern Japan, where she finds her &ldquo;bridge to heaven.&rdquo; She captures a &ldquo;light moving down a mountain slope.&rdquo; She sees a ruined city in the face of a fire-scarred mountain. Above all, she recalls what a painter once told her about art when she was twelve years old, as she sat for her portrait: &ldquo;You have to mix death into everything. Then you have to mix life into that.&rdquo; In this unforgettable collection, Ehrlich mixes life and death, real and sacred, to offer a stunning vision of our world that is both achingly familiar and miraculously strange. According to National Book Award&ndash;winning author Andrea Barrett, these essays are &ldquo;as spare and beautiful as the landscape from which they&rsquo;ve grown. . . . Each one is a pilgrimage into the secrets of the heart.&rdquo; </div>

Gretel Ehrlich
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Books By Gretel Ehrlich (3 Books)

Heart Mountain

The Solace of Open Spaces

Islands, the Universe, Home

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Gretel EhrlichFollow this author

Books By Gretel Ehrlich (3 Books)

Heart Mountain

The Solace of Open Spaces

Islands, the Universe, Home

RELATED POSTS ABOUT GRETEL EHRLICH

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Gretel Ehrlich
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