Praise for To Catch the Lightning & Alan Cheuse
The narrative brims with keen insight.
—Publisher's Weekly on To Catch the Lightning
Sympathetic and affecting... A worthy effort.
—Kirkus Reviews
An engrossing tale of sacrifice, passion, and devotion to purpose not often exhibited by any man... To Catch The Lightning will, once again, bring both fame and immortality to Edward Curtis and Alan Cheuse.
—ForeWord Magazine
Four pages into the new Alan Cheuse novel and you'll know you're reading a Great American Novel. The Real Deal, not some publisher's-hyped product of the season. To Catch the Lightning is where you should plan on spending your lingering fall afternoons, watching the leaves turn.
—Rick Kleffel, book reviewer and radio host on KUSP-FM Santa Cruz
"The photography and cinema of Edward Curtis exist at the intersection of art, history, anthropology, and technology. He was an essentially American kind of genius, and Alan Cheuse has transformed his life into compelling fiction that digs deep into the mystery and sacrifice and selfishness of creative vision."
—Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons
"To Catch the Lightning is a story of loss -- of choices made and prices paid, of the future coming fast and the past disappearing faster. Cheuse's narrative is refracted through multiple voices, each distinct, but each containing its own poetic precision. A wonderful, wonderful book of quiet power and great beauty."
—Karen Joy Fowler, author of Wit's End and The Jane Austen Book Club
"More than a century ago, as Native American cultures were struggling to survive, the American photographer Edward Curtis was recording the native people in full regalia on the striking lands where their people had lived for centuries. To Catch the Lightning tells Curtis's story vividly and eloquently. It is a great American story, about a life spent preserving and honoring those elements of life which are most respected and beloved. Alan Cheuse is to be congratulated for this vivid novel."
—William Kittredge, author of The Willow Field and The Next Rodeo