Winner of the 2013 Colorado Book Award and 2014 International Book Award
“There are so many things to recommend with this book, starting with its gorgeous prose. The essays, which build in an associative manner, create a memorial that is deeply personal yet rendered so precisely the reader feels party to the completion.”
— Robin Hemley, author of Do Over
“Fletcher's prose is simply gorgeous... An exquisite literary debut.”
— Rigoberto Gonzalez, author, Butterfly Boy
“Fletcher’s mother taught him to look at the details in all things—in nature, in junk, in antiques—believing there is a story in everything. He learned well, and has constructed a touching series of verbal shrines to the man he barely knew but sorely misses.”
— Library Journal Reviews (starred review)
"Like the dreamlike shadowboxes of Joseph Cornell, Fletcher assembles scraps of imagery and inherited keepsakes into an enchanting quest to understand his family's stories. . . . In the same way a painter applies the principles of negative space to a composition, Fletcher, who understands the endless possibilities of the essay form, relies on memory and observation, while safeguarding the sense of absence, the space of silence in his prose."
— Jericho Parms, The Rumpus
"Ultimately, it is language and a sharp eye for detail, not suspense, that pulls the reader along. In a memoir-drenched era of publishing, Descanso is refreshing."
— Southwestern American Literature
“An homage not only to his dad but to Harrison's own boyhood joys, sorrows and searching, the book makes clear the author’s expansive literary sensibilities.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“As with any quest, bravery is required. Descanso is brave, insightful, compelling, and beautifully, beautifully written.”
— Sue William Silverman, author, Pat Boone Fan Club:My Life As A White Anglo-Saxon Jew
“Fletcher deftly shows us the meaning of the word ‘quest’—investigation, dream, and religious pursuit all cohere around the essential mystery of one man’s life. In the process, the author faces his own relics, making a large picture out of the bright shards of memory and uncertainty.”
— Judith Kitchen, author of Distance and Direction
*Photos by Barry Gutierrez