Synopses & Reviews
Writing of hermits, cowboys, changing seasons, and the wind, Ehrlich draws us into her personal relationship with this "planet of Wyoming" she has come to call home. She captures the incredible beauty and the demanding harshness of natural forces in these remote reaches of the West, and the depth, tenderness and humor of the quirky souls who live there.
Ehrlich, a former filmmaker and urbanite, presents in these essays a fresh and vibrant tribute to the new life she has chosen.
Review
"The most exciting new prose I've come across this season....Part travelogue, part meditation, these twelve pieces are lyrical, humorous and eye-opening." Glamour
Review
"Ehrlich's best prose belongs in a league with Annie Dillard and even Thoreau. The Solace of Open Spaces releases the bracing air of the wilderness into the stuffy, heated confines of winter in civilization." San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"A stunning rumination on life on Wyoming's high plains....Ehrlich's gorgeous prose is as expansive as a Wyoming vista, as charged as a bolt of praire lightning." Newsday
Synopsis
A collection of transcendent, lyrical essays on life in the American West "Wyoming has found its Whitman." --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't leave. The Solace of Open Spaces is a chronicle of her first years on "the planet of Wyoming," 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--the harsh wind, bitter cold, and swiftly changing seasons--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 "as expansive as a Wyoming vista, as charged as a bolt of prairie lightning" (Newsday), Ehrlich explores the magical interplay between our interior lives and the world around us.
Synopsis
A collection of transcendent, lyrical essays on life in the American West, the classic companion to Gretel Ehrlich's new book, Unsolaced "Wyoming has found its Whitman." --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't leave. The Solace of Open Spaces is a chronicle of her first years on "the planet of Wyoming," 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--the harsh wind, bitter cold, and swiftly changing seasons--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 "as expansive as a Wyoming vista, as charged as a bolt of prairie lightning" (Newsday), Ehrlich explores the magical interplay between our interior lives and the world around us.
Synopsis
A stunning collection of personal observations that uses images of the American West to probe larger concerns in lyrical, evocative prose that is a true celebration of the region.
About the Author
Gretel Ehrlich is the author of This Cold Heaven (available in paperback from Vintage Books) and The Solace of Open Spaces, among other works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. She divides her time between California and Wyoming.
Table of Contents
The Solace Of Open Spaces Preface
The Solace of Open Spaces
Obituary
Other Lives
About Men
From a Sheepherder's Notebook
Friends, Foes, and Working Animals
The Smooth Skull of Winter
On Water
Just Married
Rules of the Game
To Live in Two Worlds
A Storm, the Cornfield, and Elk