The Solace of Open Spaces

A collection of transcendent, lyrical essays on life in the American West, the classic companion to Gretel Ehrlich&rsquo s new book, Unsolaced &ldquo Wyoming has found its Whitman.&rdquo &mdash 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&rsquo t leave. The Solace of Open Spaces is a chronicle of her first years on &ldquo the planet of Wyoming,&rdquo a personal journey into a place, a feeling, and a way of life. &#160 Ehrlich captures both the otherworldly beauty and cruelty of the natural forces&mdash the harsh wind, bitter cold, and swiftly changing seasons&mdash 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. &#160 Originally written as journal entries addressed to a friend, The Solace of Open Spaces is raw, meditative, electrifying, and uncommonly wise. In prose &ldquo as expansive as a Wyoming vista, as charged as a bolt of prairie lightning&rdquo &#160 (Newsday), Ehrlich explores the magical interplay between our interior lives and the world around us.