Synopses & Reviews
Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Asian American Studies. Native American Studies. INTIMATE is a hybrid memoir and "photo album" that blends personal essay, historical documentary, and poetry to examine the tense relationship between self, society, and familial legacy in contemporary America. Typographically innovative, INTIMATE creates parallel streams, narrating the stories of Rekdal's Norwegian-American father and his mixed-race marriage, the photographer Edward S. Curtis, and Curtis's murdered Apsaroke guide, Alexander Upshaw. The result is panoramic, a completely original literary encounter with intimacy, identity, family relations, and race.
Synopsis
INTIMATE brilliantly redefines "memoir" by assembling its narratives from divergent sources: the mixed-race marriage of Paisley Rekdal's parents, the life of photographer Edward S. Curtis (chronicler and myth-maker of the Old West), and the almost unknown story of Alexander Upshaw, Curtis's Native American guide and interpreter. Typographically adventurous, Rekdal uses a combination of prose, poetry, and photographs to create a panoramic yet intimate encounter with American history, and a new way of thinking about the riddle of identity.
About the Author
Paisley Rekdal is the author of a book of essays, The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee (Pantheon, 2000; Vintage, 2002), and three books of poetry. Her work has received a Village Voice Writers on the Verge Award, a Fulbright Fellowship, and the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Fellowship. Her poems and essays have been featured in The New York Times Magazine, NPR, and Nerve, and in many literary journals. She teaches at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.