A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing: Stories - Softcover

Weed, Tim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0997452846 ISBN 13: 9780997452846

Publisher: Green Writers Press, 2018

Synopsis

A high altitude lake is the point of departure for these stories of dark adventure, in which fishing guides, amateur sportsmen, teenage misfits, scientists, mountaineers, and expatriates embark on disquieting journeys of self-discovery in far-flung places.

"From the mountain lakes of the Colorado Rockies to cobbled streets of Spain, this fascinating collection of short stories never disappoints. A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing is a collection you'll be happy to get lost in." -- Ploughshares

"These stories bristle with energy and immediacy. The writing is spare and meticulous and packs a hefty emotional punch. I am not exaggerating when I say this collection kept me up at nights. I just couldn't stop reading." -- Addison Independent

"Tim Weed proves himself a skilled creator of a sense of place . . . each story deposits one definitively into a geography, of mind and map." -- The Boston Globe

"Provocative and memorable, this collection strikes all the right chords." -- Main Street Rag

"I found myself consuming [these] thirteen tightly wound tales with addictive delight." -- Fiction Writers Review

A FIELD GUIDE TO MURDER & FLY FISHING made the 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Awards Grand Prize Short List and was a finalist in the short story category for both the 2018 American Fiction Awards and the 2017 International Book Awards. Earlier versions were shortlisted for the New Rivers Press Many Voices Project, the Autumn House Press Fiction Prize, and the Lewis-Clark Press Discovery Award. 

"Each story is a jewel, cracking open what matters most: love, family, and our big beautiful planet."--Ann Hood, author of The Book That Matters Most

"Tim Weed's A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing is a fiction collection of the first order. I found myself parceling out the stories to make them last. These are stories that will live a long time both on the page and in your heart." --Joseph Monninger, author of The World as We Know It

"This collection of stories by Tim Weed is grounded in the specificity of its settings, all of which contain hazards of one kind or another: a mountain lake, a jungle peak, an Amazonian river, a prairie giving way to construction, a seashore suddenly overcome by the tide, a city stuck in the past, a snowy slope (or two). But it is also full of mystery, and much of the mystery is cosmic . . . It is written so deftly, with such a light touch, that suspense builds in each story like a gathering storm." -- Patrick Joyce, Midwest Book Review

About this title

About the Author

Tim Weed teaches writing at Grub Street in Boston and in the MFA Writing program at Western Connecticut State University, and  works as a featured expert for National Geographic Expeditions and is the co-founder of the Cuba Writers Program. His first novel, Will Poole’s Island (Namelos, 2014), was named one of Bank Street College of Education’s Best Books of the Year. Read more at timweed.net.

From the Back Cover

A high altitude lake is the point of departure for these stories of dark adventure, in which misfits, sportsmen, scientists, mountaineers, and expatriates embark on disquieting journeys of self-discovery in far-flung places. Granite quarries, tidal zones, Amazonian backwaters, volcanic summits, snowy ski slopes, and tense city streets in Europe and Cuba provide a backdrop for immersive tales of solitude, altered states, class tension, moral slippage, and the urgent need to engage with the planet that surrounds us.

Praise for A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing

"These stories bristle with energy and immediacy. The writing is spare and meticulous and packs a hefty emotional punch. I am not exaggerating when I say this collection kept me up at nights. I just couldn't stop reading." -- Addison Independent

"Tim Weed proves himself a skilled creator of a sense of place . . . each story deposits one definitively into a geography, of mind and map." -- The Boston Globe

"I found myself consuming [these] thirteen tightly wound tales with addictive delight." -- Fiction Writers Review

"From the mountain lakes of the Colorado Rockies to the cobbled streets of Spain, this fascinating collection of short stories never disappoints. A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing is a collection you'll be happy to get lost in." -- Ploughshares

"If you seek a guide--on coming of age, lost love, temptations both resisted and surrendered to, and the need to both engage with and respect the planet--Weed's book is a good choice. It won't tell you which laws to obey and which to break--but it will show you, with simultaneous beauty and savagery, what will happen either way." -- Colorado Review

"Each story is a jewel, cracking open what matters most: love, family, and our big beautiful planet." -- Ann Hood, author of The Book that Matters Most

"Two young boys learn about death and mercy on a camping trip, a fishing guide contemplates and crosses a dark line during an excursion with a rich, entitled client and a teenager following the Grateful Dead for a summer tour plunges into a frightening drug addled spiral. These are just some of the characters searching for truth and meaning in life and death in the new short story collection by Vermont author Tim Weed." -- Vermont Public Radio

"I found myself parceling out the stories to make them last. These are stories that will live a long time both on the page and in your heart." -- Joseph Monninger, author of The World as We Know It

"Weed's stories . . . have their roots in the relationships between men and boys, and between men and nature, and they are colored by his long experience as a travel and adventure writer . . . His characters are fishermen, mountaineers, and teenagers all on a quest for self-discovery. From the title page to the last page, this is a book of gems." -- Big Sky Journal

"Under the blue skies and dark waters of A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, readers can feel pain, empathy, and purpose bubbling out from the sharp-detailed mental images." -- Pleiades

"Weed begins with the assumption that his readers are ready and able to see that the world is not as it seems. Things happen we cannot anticipate, and men change in surprising ways . . . Humans and their sometimes mysterious natures are all it takes for Weed to spin fiction of the first order." -- The Brattleboro Reformer

"It's the book Hemingway and Salinger and Rick Bass would write if they traveled the world together and then got stranded in a canoe. But better!" --Eleanor Henderson, author of The Twelve Mile Straight

"Many of Weed's stories have a hint of the mysterious, even the supernatural, but they are all grounded in sharply-rendered material worlds so fresh one feels one might step directly into the literary photographs he has created and stroll around for a while. A top-notch debut, not to be missed." -- Jacob Appel, author of Einstein's Beach Hose

"[In "Tower Eight"] Weed delves into adolescent friendship and the idea of being an outsider with great care for his characters. The tale begins and ends with one character musing on the reality of the other. The surreal ploy is subtle enough to bring the story into the realm of good literature, making the reader question perceptions of reality. Weed's prose is weightless, and weighty, all at once." -- Seven Days

"The Money Pill" feels like essential literature--for its self-awareness, its bold impeachment of globalism, and its sultry, sticky atmosphere of arousal and shame." -- Necessary Fiction

"["Steal Your Face"] is a short story that would make Mark Twain proud, as if Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn found themselves on tour with Jerry and the boys and culminated their eventful summers on a head full of acid in Colorado at the Red Rocks amphitheater." -- Roland Goity, Vagabondage Press

"A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing is more than a collection of adventure stories. It is a significant and moving collection of ideas, snapshots, and visions that leave a lasting impression. Never predictable, this collection is a must for travelers, adventure seekers, and anyone who cares to examine the depth of [Weed's] varied and flawed characters." -- We Are the Curriculum

"Gearing up or slowing down, these short stories are a great way to leap into summer reading." -- Petoskey News-Review

"As readers, we have been given passports into Tim Weed's fictional worlds . . . We cannot alter the fates of those we have joined but, if we give them a chance, they could alter ours." --Small Press Book Review

"This collection of stories by Tim Weed is grounded in the specificity of its settings, all of which contain hazards of one kind or another. But it is also full of mystery, and much of the mystery is cosmic. Its stories are about transgression and karma, and a natural order that seems to render its characters uncertain of their own reality. It is written so deftly, with such a light touch, that suspense builds in each story like a gathering storm." -- Patrick Joyce, author of the forthcoming One Devil Too Many

"This is an outstanding story collection. And while the prose isn't exactly Hemingway-terse, it still brings Papa to mind: men fishing, men on skis, men climbing mountains. But there's also a magical element here that calls Borges to mind. Who is that strange woman at the bar? Who is that young climber's companion? It's altogether a satisfying read." --Clifford Garstang, author of What the Zhang Boys Knew

Edition details

• Publisher: Green Writers Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0997452846
• ISBN 13: 9780997452846
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 266