{"product_id":"silver-light-by-david-thomson-9780857305022","title":"Silver Light","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom 1865 to 1950, the multi-faceted world of the American West, its rich, colourful characters, and its many faces—historical, mythic, and cinematic—are captured in the story of a reclusive, elderly photographer and her friend, a writer of Western comic books.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTwo characters dominate the novel's foreground: a Georgia O'Keeffe-like figure, photographer Susan Garth, shrewd, cantankerous, reclusive, and still self-reliant at 80, and her longtime friend Bark Blaylock, a western writer\/filmmaker who may be Wyatt Earp's son. A subplot involves James Averill, a wealthy Easterner who sees his philandering as a frontiersman's quest for knowledge. As the time frame shuttles between 1950 and the late 1800s, we meet Susan's father, a gentlemanly cattle rancher who reads Thomas Hardy, and serves as a springboard to the Old West of Bat Masterson, Geronimo and Billy the Kid. The cast includes Willa Cather, Montgomery Clift, Charles Ives, Judge Roy Bean and numerous characters smuggled in from such movies as \u003cem\u003eThe Man Who Shot Liberty Valance\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eMcCabe and Mrs. Miller\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003cem\u003eSilver Light\u003c\/em\u003e artfully juxtaposes the brimming frontier of legend against a construct of the West as a constricted wilderness of the soul.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'A fascinating novel. With its rich, handsome prose, this is a book to savor' — William Hjortsberg,\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'Thomson's intricate, hypnotic history\/romance about the Old West and how we have come to perceive it... Masterly' \u003c\/strong\u003e—\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'Thomson's rangy metafictional collage blends figures from history and legend as well as characters from Hollywood films in an endlessly inventive cinematic meditation on the American West' \u003c\/strong\u003e—\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47383999578348,"sku":"9780857305022","price":32.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/5975753482493.jpg?v=1773393754","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/silver-light-by-david-thomson-9780857305022","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}