The River Home: An Angler's Explorations

by Jerry Dennis

Book Overview

In this remarkable collection of essays and stories, Jerry Dennis demonstrates why he has emerged as one of America's finest writers on nature and the outdoors, drawing such comparisons as John... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312185944
• ISBN13: 9780312185947
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

beautiful Michigan writing

What I liked most about this book is that the majority of the essays are based in Michigan. I gave it an extra star just for that reason. I think if you're from Michigan and you flyfish, then you'll probably enjoy this book as much as I did. His writing style in my opinion is somewhere between Gierach and Lyons. In his essays, Jerry Dennis talks about his favorite fishing partners just like Gierach does. And, the pen and ink illustrations throughout the book are done in the same style as Gierach's books. Dennis writes realistically about fitting his love of fly fishing into an average every day life of a father, just like Lyons does. As far as writing about nature and fly fishing in Michigan I think this book deserves 5 stars. But, I didnt like the few fictional stories toward the end of the book. They were a little odd and had strange endings.

I LOVED it!

Perhaps it has to do with living in the Midwest or on Lake Michigan, but 'The River Home' hit home in more than one way. Jerry Dennis brings out all the humor, irony and mishaps that anglers experience. I just didn't know these things happened to others until I read about them! He breaks down the pleasures of life and fishing to the simplest forms. Can't wait to break out the fly rod in spring!

Jerry Dennis elevates the personal essay to a new level.

"Big trout are greedy," writes Jerry Dennis in one of the nineteen essays and five short stories that make up this splendid collection.And as a writer, Dennis is as greedy as a big trout. He feeds voraciously on the facts, observations, insights and conclusions which tell him that as a writer he is alive.Both long-time fans of Dennis's work and newcomers alike will find "The River Home" to be a special treat. Those familiar with his early book of fishing essays, "A Place on the Water" as well as his two books of natural history, "It's Raining Frogs and Fishes" and "A Bird in the Waterfall" will be able to trace his growth as a writer. Those who aren't will be amazed at the style at which Dennis has arrived at this point in his career.I'll leave the official pronouncement of "a classic form" to wiser and more experienced reviewers. But in this book, Jerry Dennis has elevated the typical "outdoor" essay, usually a mere recollection of adventures while hunting, fishing, camping, canoeing, or pursuing other outdoor activities. He has transcended the typical by blending in elements of "nature" writing: observation, research, speculation about the world in which the sportsman places himself. And for Dennis, this world is not merely part of the background; it is part of the fabric of the experience in which he wraps himself.For example, in the initial essay, "Home Again," as easily as he'd don a favorite pair of worn blue jeans, he slips into a discussion of the geological impact of glaciers on the part of Michigan where he lives. And in "Big Troug in Condor Country" he takes time out from taking you trout fishing to explain the topography of the Rio Puelo Valley and the lives of the people there.If you want comparisons, I'll offer: Dennis is like John McPhee in that he speaks with authority based on exhaustive research and experience; the facts have become his own. He is like Walt Whitman who! wrote, "What I shall assume you shall assume." In places Dennis speaks of "we" and you quickly learn to trust his conclusions.Whitman also wrote: "Do I contradict myslf? Very well then I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes)Contradictions didn't bother Whitman and they don't bother Dennis. In one essay, with a simple pejorative, he dismisses Thoreau's advice that a person be content to explore a few acres in a lifetime. But in another, whose title itself is a quote from ol' Henry David, "Simplify, Simplify" he paraphrases: "I am determined to live life deliberately. I refuse to fritter my life away on details ..."Then again, perhaps he's not contradicting himself. Perhaps he is just being picky.In addition to being greedy, big trout can also be selective.