Ghost Dances

Proving Up on the Great Plains

Contributors

By Josh Garrett-Davis

Formats and Prices

Price

$13.99

Price

$17.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. ebook $13.99 $17.99 CAD
  2. Hardcover $39.00 $49.00 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around August 21, 2012. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Growing up in South Dakota, Josh Garrett-Davis knew he would leave. But as a young adult, he kept going back — in dreams and reality and by way of books. With this beautifully written narrative about a seemingly empty but actually rich and complex place, he has reclaimed his childhood, his unusual family, and the Great Plains.

Among the subjects and people that bring his Midwestern Plains to life are the destruction and resurgence of the American bison; Native American “Ghost Dancers,” who attempted to ward off destruction by supernatural means; the political allegory to be found in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; and current attempts by ecologists to “rewild” the Plains, complete with cheetahs.

Garrett-Davis infuses the narrative with stories of his family as well — including his great-great-grandparents’ twenty-year sojourn in Nebraska as homesteaders and his progressive Methodist cousin Ruth, a missionary in China ousted by Mao’s revolution. Ghost Dances is a fluid combination of memoir and history and reportage that reminds us our roots matter.

Genre:

On Sale
Aug 21, 2012
Page Count
336 pages
ISBN-13
9780316199858

Josh Garrett-Davis

About the Author

Josh Garrett-Davis has an MFA from Columbia and is currently a PhD student in American history at Princeton. Ghost Dances is his first book.

Learn more about this author