Before beginning the first chapter of this book, I only knew the story from the blurb on the jacket, which I read in a bookstore in Bellingham, Wa. But when I read the first chapter I realized I was learning about one of Seattle's greatest artists - though one unknown for far too long.

Curtis singlemindedly pursued one life vision from the late 1800s through the First World War: document the American Indian as she and he truly lived, before the American expansion, Manifest Destiny, and a culture of blatant racism and greed assimilated them. Although it cost him much - Curtis lost his wife, his reputation, and died penniless - his work documenting the reality of Native life was astounding. He produced twenty volumes of work, so exquisitely printed that the first reviews of his books were said to rival only the King James Bible. He made 200,000 photos. He recorded 10,000 songs. He wrote vocabularies and alphabets for 75 languages, many of which have been used by those tribes' descendants to revive their language. He transcribed rituals, stories, mythology. He produced the first deeply researched reconstruction of Custer's shameful work in The Battle of Little Big Horn, by talking to eyewitnesses on both sides of the battle. He told the story of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce wars, followed by the in humane treatment of the natives.

The Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher does an outstanding job of bringing this visionary the credit he deserves for such phenomenal work.