Crazy for Rivers - Hardcover

Barich, Bill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1558217053 ISBN 13: 9781558217058

Publisher: UNKNO, 1999

Synopsis

Details the author's passion for fishing and his memories of hours spent on various streams and lakes

About this title

About the Author

Bill Barich is the author of five books, among them Laughing in the Hills, Big Dreams: Into the Heart of California, and Carson Valley, a novel. He wrote for The New Yorker for many years, contributing short stories as well as pieces on such varied subjects as fly fishing, boxing, Italian culture, and his favorite English pub. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow in fiction, and currently lives in San Anselmo, California.

From the Back Cover

That autumn, I went a little crazy for rivers, writes Bill Barich, and this charming volume captures the essence of this obsession. The hours he spent on various streams became a kind of meditation on family, friends, and the natural world. To anyone who remembers the infinite patience of a grandfather on a lake, or the romance of a mountain getaway with a new girlfriend; to anyone who can recall each fish caught on days that were far too hot, or way too cold, or on rivers too crowded or in canyons too steep; to anyone who has appreciated the trust of an age-old fishing partner, or marveled at the beauty of a leaping trout - to anyone, in fact, who has ever gone crazy for rivers, Bill Barich's wonderful memories of a season on the water and a lifetime of fishing will seem both touching and wise. This little book is a gem. (6 1/4 x 9 1/4, 98 pages)

Reviews

Barich (Big Dreams: Into the Heart of California, 1994, etc.) returns to the trout stream, and it's high time. Few can compete with Barich in the writing of spare, elegant, beguiling fishing tales, and the paucity of his output makes the appearance of this book most welcome. Life isn't quite so airy here as it was back on Hat Creek, the McCloud, and the Russian (venues of his earlier writings), and the streams are as much solace now as they were seductions then. But its inconceivable that Barich would let anything go ponderous, and he handles his miseries with aplomb, knitting their darkness into the picture as part, not a condition, of the story. It is an autumn in which he gives himself over to the witchery of rivers in a way that he hasn't for too long. While he drinks in the place and the fishing, he marvels at the life that brought him there; in particular, the fishing he had as a kid with his father and brothers, and ``how a past experience can touch us deeply, can shatter us or set us free, even though we've never reckoned with its power.'' Bits of melancholy drift by, seemingly weightless (``A long, healthy marriage went untended and collapsed''his own, that is), though you can feel the thin ice of emotional vulnerability crack slightly beneath him. Then again, when he utters those sacred words ``and we were the only guys around,'' you can hear the glee in his streamside voice. And because he is such a reproachless storyteller, you know that ``It was a warm Sunday toward the end of September when we set out, and the sky was cloudless and omenles'' means with absolute surety that El Nio will beat them like a gong. In Barich's hands, the fish story exists as a state of grace. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This superb collection of essays will make readers crazy not only for rivers but also for trout and Barich's vivid prose. Part autobiography, part angling how-to, and part celebration of friendship and its surprises, the volume describes how Barich became a trout fisherman and writer after moving to California. As the title suggests, the author offers delightful river vignettes, mostly set in California and Montana, but his book's audience will hardly be limited by geography. Barich's anecdotes, especially a description of a big brown trout he caught in the Bear River, deftly blend the beauty of rivers and the appeal of fishing, and his easy-to-follow advice gives readers the hope that they, too, can catch similarly big fish. Barich is an excellent stylist no matter his subject. His description of some particularly succulent tomatoes is as evocative and poetic as anything he says about trout. Suggest this outstanding collection to fans of Norman Maclean and Thomas McGuane. Their only disappointment will be the book's length; it's as brief as the flash of a trout breaking off the line. John Rowen

Edition details

• Publisher: UNKNO
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1558217053
• ISBN 13: 9781558217058
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 80