There’s a ‘scene’ in “Picnic in the Ruins” where Sophia Shepard is giving a presentation to a herd of tourists. While she talks about museums and who owns the items inside of the museums, one of the audience members mentions that instead of going to a museum, these tours are bringing people to the original locations - almost more of an ‘on-site’ museum. Something about this stuck out to me. When we (as people) go to museums, we are just looking at stuff from other places. Why don’t we go to those places instead? Why are there collectors of artifacts? Who owns these artifacts? What is the value of these items and these places?
Maybe that’s going too deep. Let’s set the stage.
Sophia Shepard is a Ph.D student who has been relegated to remote Utah. She studies in the impact of tourism on Native American sites. The Ashdown brothers are two ne’er do wells who botched a simple robbery and now are on the run from their fixer…who is a ex-magician. There’s a (handsome) Department of the Interior agent and a dermatologist from Germany who join Sophia on her studies and journey to various sites.
There’s also a small town sheriff, a widow and a hi-tech cyber punk turned hermit. It’s like….It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World took place in the Utah desert and instead of ‘loot’, its artifacts and historical sites.
This book is almost an onion - on the surface, a mystery, but peel back the layers for the comedy, then the core. The core plot of this book is the idea of ownership and artifacts. The question of who owns land and how has colonialism and westward expansion changed the landscape. Of what happens to those people and artifacts.
I’m a massive fan of Todd Robert Peterson and his books and I have been for a long time. He was, in fact, the first comp. professor I had in college and his lessons on writing stick with me to this day. His books and writing in general always leave me with a lingering feeling - one that makes me want to write more, to research more, to question more. This book is no different.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this in advance of the January 5, 2021 release date. Thank you x1 million to Todd for continuing to inspire me, 20+ years later.