The Everlasting Stream: A True Story of Rabbits, Guns, Friends, and Family - Hardcover

Harrington, Walt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 087113862X ISBN 13: 9780871138620

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr, 2002

Synopsis

A former city reporter recounts how his experiences with four hunter friends from the country changed his life over the course of a dozen years and how he sought to impart their outlook to his teenage son years later.

About this title

About the Author

Walt Harrington teaches literary journalism at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Reviews

With humor and insight, Harrington (Crossings: A White Man's Journey into Black America) weaves several themes in his tribute to friendship and storytelling: a study of masculinity, a corrective to the belief that hunting is savage, a father-son chronicle, an ode to common folks, an examination of race, and a city mouse/country mouse fable. That he uses his African-American father-in-law's annual Thanksgiving rabbit hunts as a thread to stitch these patches together only enhances his achievement. Harrington, a white, former Washington Post Magazine writer, nicely balances analytical distance with the stories of the wisecracking, whiskey-sipping black pals of his father-in-law, who are interested in shooting the breeze as much as the cottontails. With its description of crying bears and why it's better to be "off the egg" than on (i.e., able to bag a bunny), this does for hunting what A River Runs Through It did for fly-fishing. Comparing sunrises to cleaning prey might be a stretch, but not when the prose is this beautifully tactile: for Harrington, it's feral yet transporting to "cut a rabbit's belly open on a cold day and suddenly feel its innards warm your freezing hands."
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

According to Harrington (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), an award-winning journalist for the Washington Post Magazine and the author of Crossings, his latest work is "a hybrid, comprising journalism, memoir, and essay." Harrington tells several good hunting stories while giving readers a detailed education in the art of hunting rabbits. Interspersed throughout this thoughtful book is the author's own story of his simple beginnings and rise up the corporate ladder and his decision to give up the prestigious job to return, with his family, to a simpler life. This urban journalist also tells of his experiences with his African American father-in-law and his lifetime buddies in rural Kentucky, all against a backdrop of hunting rabbits. The question of why we hunt is explored in depth and summed up in a conversation the author had with a dinner guest. "I can't believe you killed those little bunnies," the guest said. His response: "I can't believe you ate those little bunnies without killing one." Recommended for all public and academic libraries. Scott R. DiMarco, Herkimer Cty. Community Coll., NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 087113862X
• ISBN 13: 9780871138620
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192