Recapture by Erica
Olsen is a quite interesting collection of related short stories
mostly set in the extended Four Corners region of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah,
and Colorado. It is about capturing the past, reliving the past, navigating the
present, and attempting to protect the future. Part archeology, part
Americana nostalgia, lots of environmentalism, with a healthy selection of
relationship issues, one never knows where the next story is going to take you.
A
uniting theme is the disturbance and looting of artifacts, particularly of
burial sites, by tourists and professional archeologists. These acts
of vandalism are an issue not only in the American southwest, but across the
globe. They range from taking petrified rock souvenirs, to stealing and
putting on display Egyptian mummies. This ethics issue is not new, nor settled.
Another
reoccurring discussion concerns the use of roadside attraction replicas and
curio shops to make tourism easier -- why see the real thing when you can see a
re-creation without going too far from the main road.
Olsen’s writing style is quite fun, a youthful
cynicism about the world, but not yet a rejection of it.
Recommendation: Yes.
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