""Books of essays," Stephen Harrigan writes in a short introduction to this collection, "tend to be assembled more than planned." An Anchor in the Sea of Time is more planned than assembled, as Harrigan's seniority has allowed him to pick and choose his topics in the later stages of his career. While each essay stands on its own (most have already been published in Texas Monthly or the Alcalde), there is a steady focus on memory, identity, and history--both individual and collective. Harrigan's writing became more personal, and more focused on the topics that anchor this collection, with the publication of "Off Course," a 2016 piece about his father, who was killed in a plane crash before he was born. Subsequent pieces like "The Voice in the Tree," abouta crisis of identity he had as a child, or "A Family Painting," about art that hung in his grandparents house and "whose subject matter and colors became part of my consciousness," continue that exploration of remembering his youth. Other pieces are bothpersonal and generational, such as an essay about a group trip to Vietnam that stirs up feelings of class privilege in those who fought in the war and those (like Harrigan) who did their best not to"-- Provided by publisher.
A new collection of essays grappling with identity and memory, from a master of the form.
The author of the New York Times bestselling novel The Gates of the Alamo, the sweeping Texas history Big Wonderful Thing, and decades of incisive journalism, Stephen Harrigan is an adept writer skilled in crafting memorable characters. From this singular voice now comes a collection of essays tackling the most personal, and yet most expansive, themes of all: identity, memory, and time itself.
An Anchor in the Sea of Time unfolds individual stories but also a larger narrative about the development and distortions of history. In one essay, a painting on his grandparents’ wall is seared in Harrigan’s young mind. In another, a group trip to Vietnam stirs up a sobering confrontation with class privilege among Americans who fought there and others, like Harrigan, who did their best not to. The award-winning essay “Off Course” reflects on the father Harrigan never met. And Harrigan’s reporting about the Karankawas, an Indigenous group from the Texas coast once thought to be extinct, takes readers deep into the recesses of collective forgetting and offers glimpses of the possibility of recovery. A vivid encounter with lost selves, vanished worlds, and futures yet unrealized, An Anchor in the Sea of Time is perhaps the most personal book yet from this beloved writer.
A new collection of essays grappling with identity and memory, from a master of the form.
