Mysterious Feasts

This book is brilliant! Lillian Preston is a photographer during the 1960's and 70's, and Samantha is both her daughter and the subject of a series of highly controversial photos. The book is told from Samantha's perspective after Lillian's death, in an epistolary manner. Most of the book is framed as a catalogue for a MOMA show of Lillian's work, with each piece titled, dated, and interpreted. Additional exposition is contained in Lillian's diary entries, letters to a life-long friend, and other documents. While this sounds as though it might be jarring, Goldberg masterfully weaves Samantha's coming of age, Lillian's struggles with social and economic mores, a sense of the societal changes taking place in the 60's and 70's, and the relationship between Lillian and Samantha into these individual documents. The use of the photographic catalogue is so well done that it's almost impossible to believe that these photos do not actually exist o...

Harold Little Feather is working undercover, embedded in a Montanan off-the-grid militia group, when he is pulled to investigate a series of defacements in the Smith River canyon. A battle is raging between those in favor of allowing copper mining in the canyon and conservationists who fear a major environmental catastrophe. Someone is erecting macabre scarecrows near the river and potentially damaging ancient petroglyphs as the culprit writes "Not on My Watch" on canyon walls near the statues. Harold arrives, bringing his newly discovered son along, just as a documentary film-maker joins leaders from both sides of the controversy in a river trip led by Sean Stranahan, the central character of this series. Although Sean plays an important role in the plot, this is ultimately Harold Little Feather's story as his undercover work dovetails with his investigation of the scarecrows. The plot includes a fair amount of violence, but the book has a very character-centered feel ...