GRETEL EHRLICHis the author ofFacing the Wave, The Future of Ice, Heart Mountain, The Solace of Open Spaces, This Cold Heaven, and Unsolsced,among other works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Se «cavalca verso il tramonto», è perché è dalle quattro del mattino che sposta bestiame in sella al suo cavallo e dopo quindici ore di lavoro vuole solo tornare a casa dalla famiglia. She is struck by the wide cultural gulf separating these people from Californians, and she comes to respect the Wyoming way of being.

She learns what we all do once some cataclysm awakens us to the finitude and fragility of life — that this appetite for life is best roused by the most prayerful of acts: the act of paying attention; that to see the world more clearly is to love it more deeply. To me, this feels like a young person's book: Ehrlich doesn't understand how it feels to be too old or sick to spend 16 hours in the saddle, and she doesn't really explore the toll this must take on the body. Here is a quick description and cover image of book The Solace of Open Spaces written by Gretel Ehrlich which was published in January 1, 1984.

Together, these reasons made it nearly impossible for me finish the 131 pages without tossing it aside in disgust and disappointment. Ehrlich’s gorgeous prose is as expansive as a Wyoming vista, as charged as a bolt of prairie lightning.

Reading this collection reminded me of that more vividly than it did with Islands, the Universe, Home. She conveys effectively the wide open feeling of Wyoming, and I was easily able to imagine the scenes and sensations she described. Beginning with the wrenching death of a close male friend, it recounts in her growing love for Wyoming and its people the discovery of a new life.Her prose pieces have appeared in Harper’s, the Atlantic, the New York Times Magazine, and National Geographic, among many other publications.