Falling from the Moon is more than a tale of a Sapphire, a woman endeavoring on a quest to find her long-lost father while ultimately discovering herself. The true star of this book is the canvas upon which the story is drawn. Author Karin Zirk draws upon decades of participant observation to create a virtual Rainbow Gathering for Sapphire’s adventure. Exhibiting the keen eye of an ethnographer, Zirk’s writing conjures a world, brutally honest and rich with detail, allowing readers to travel through time and space not to any specific place, but to a temporary utopian moment. Though she never names it in the body of her work, she has created with her fiction one of the most immersive descriptions written of a Rainbow Gathering. Her resulting novel, the story of a wanderer finding her path and discovering her tribe, is an important piece of ethnofiction. In writing it, Zirk gives us one of the best and most accessible descriptions of a Rainbow Gathering, allowing readers to experience it with all of its complexity and promise.
Photo courtesy Buffalo State, SUNY buffalostate.edu
Michael I. Niman, Ph.D.
Professor (Journalism & Critical Media Studies, Women & Gender Studies)
Chancellor’s Award – Excellence in Teaching
SUNY Buffalo State – Communication Department
