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Blue Rider Press
March 2013
On Sale: March 7, 2013
326 pages ISBN: 0399160701 EAN: 9780399160707 Kindle: B008EKONGA Hardcover / e-Book
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Fiction Family Life
In her first novel since The God of War, the critically
acclaimed author Marisa Silver takes Dorothea Lange’s
“Migrant Mother” photograph as inspiration for a
breathtaking reinvention—a story of two women, one famous
and one forgotten, and of the remarkable legacy of their
chance encounter. In 1936, a young mother resting by the side of a road in
Central California is spontaneously photographed by a woman
documenting the migrant laborers who have taken to America’s
farms in search of work. Little personal information is
exchanged, and neither woman has any way of knowing that
they have produced what will become the most iconic image of
the Great Depression. Three vibrant characters anchor the narrative of Mary Coin.
Mary, the migrant mother herself, who emerges as a woman
with deep reserves of courage and nerve, with private
passions and carefully-guarded secrets. Vera Dare, the
photographer wrestling with creative ambition who makes the
choice to leave her children in order to pursue her work.
And Walker Dodge, a present-day professor of cultural
history, who discovers a family mystery embedded in the
picture. In luminous, exquisitely rendered prose, Silver
creates an extraordinary tale from a brief moment in
history, and reminds us that although a great photograph can
capture the essence of a moment, it only scratches the
surface of a life.
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