Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska [Hardcover]

Lou Ureneck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2007

While father and son fishing trips can be the stuff of American legend, they can also turn out to be the stuff of anger, love and self-discovery.  In his memoir of a fishing trip through the Alaskan wilderness, Lou Ureneck brings to life the struggle to reclaim the trust of his teenage son, Adam, following his divorce. Told against the backdrop of the Alaskan wilds, Backcast is the remembrance of a fishing trip that carried a father and son from the mountains of Alaska to the Bering Sea.  Along the way, nature transforms from friend into foe, and their struggles are played out against the poignant emotional battle raging between the two as they descend the river headed toward confrontation. On their journey, the two encounter nature's dangers -- bears, violent river currents and ruthless, punishing weather -- as well as the hurts that exist between them, the reasons for divorce, the absence of a father and the withheld love of a son.  Dipping his hand into the river of his own life, Ureneck recounts his own fatherless childhood, the influence of his mother's boyfriend who helped him learn to fish, and the realization that he himself had done the one thing he always promised himself he would not do: He ended his marriage in divorce. Part adventure story, part reconciliation with life's unexpected turns, and part commentary on the healing power of nature, "Backcast" explores the world of a man confronted by the hard choices divorce can bring to create a moving meditation on fatherhood.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Lou Ureneck is a master craftsman, and in "Backcast" he has meticulously constructed a story that's lasting and splendid to behold. You need not love fishing or the outdoors to enjoy this redemptive and intensely observed journey of self-discovery."--Boston Globe

 

"A beautiful book ... as clear and bright as an Alaskan snowmelt."

--Portland Oregonian  

 

" ...gripping from beginning to end."

- Roankoke Times

 

"A stunning memoir, a marvelous outdoor adventure, a breathtaking travelogue that explores the wilds of Alaska and the intricacies of the human heart."-- Boston Globe

"The Alaskan wilderness leaps to life in its gritty reality—fast-rushing rivers, misty rolling hills, bears "the size of church doors," relentless rainfalls, eddies roiling with fat salmon and char—just as the tenuous terrain between father and son leaps to life too. Anger and hurt thread through this book—but so do taut stretches of beauty, wonder, and redemption in the riches of life in the wild."--Don George, National Geographic Traveler (Book of the Month)

"Backcast" is a compelling read, part true adventure, part commentary on fatherhood and life's twists and turns."--Peter Genovese, Newark Star-Ledger

"I wholly recommend this read, for anyone who thinks of fly fishing, or the outdoors as an indispensable part of their lives, and to anyone who has ever been a father or a son, and had hopes and disappointments for that relationship. This is a well written book, a real book, an honest book, a thoughtful book, and a thoroughly enjoyable read."--Cameron Larsen, Oregon guide and Big Y Fly blog

"This book is a rarity: humble in its beauty, elegant in its reflection."--Anchorage Daily News

 

"Backcast is a deeply personal and often painful memoir on fatherhood, growing up, the many manifestations of family dysfunction, and the role of the outdoors in one’s life...intriguing and valuable both for its insights and what you might see as its warnings. I applaud Lou Ureneck for finding the courage to write such a book."--Tennessee Valley Angler

 

"Huckleberry Finn written by Charles Dickens, a story of self-preservation told without bathos. ... There are two adventures here, each in its own wilderness and each with its own measure of indecision, difficulty, disovery and serendipity."--Jim Rousmanier, Keene Sentinel

 

"With its poetic fineness and almost mathematical detail, fly-fishing has a gestural language which links aficionados on a stream, even in silence. It's that language that Ureneck hoped would help reverse a widening gulf between himself and a teenage son. The hope played out in an eventful fishing trip on Alaska's lonely Kanektok River in 2000. The father-son link was reknit, if not right away, and not necessarily in the way Ureneck imagined. ... More than a fish story, it's an autobiography, and at the center are two broken families."--David Mehegan, The Boston Globe

 

"Although the fishing-trip memoir verges on literary cliché, this recounting of an Alaskan journey that Ureneck, head of BU’s journalism program, took with his son manages to more than stand out – calling to mind at times that gold standard of fish-and-family portraits, Norman MacLean’s A River Runs Through It. Exploring in equal parts the Alaskan wilderness and his tricky relationship with his son, Ureneck is not content with mere absolution; instead, he hunts for redemption, and along the way nets a fresh start with his boy."-Geoffrey Gagnon, Boston Magazine

 

"[A] thoughtful, engaging memoir...an enjoyable, heartfelt narrative."--Kirkus Reviews

 

“The unflinching terrain of the Alaskan interior has yielded an unflinching memoir, one of the finest meditations on fathers and sons that I’ve ever read. There’s nothing sentimental or sugarcoated here— it’s of a piece with the landscape where it’s set. But there is quiet redemption.”—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

 

 “This is simply a fabulous book, as deep and true as the Alaskan waters that serve as its backdrop. It is an exciting adventure story. It is a profound story of the heart. It is warm and beautiful and so sweetly honest, a father fighting for his son, to know him, to regain him, in a way that will stay and linger long after the final page is turned.”—Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights
 
“Think of crossing Tobias Wolff's dysfunctional upbringing in This Boy’s Life with Norman MacLean's metaphysical fly-fishing in A River Runs Through It (with admixtures of E.B. White's classic essay “Once More to the Lake” and Hemingway's “Big Two-Hearted River”— all of it going back more or less to Huck and Jim on the raft) and you get a rough idea of the territory, and of the high standard that Lou Ureneck has set for himself. But Ureneck's memoir has its own entirely distinctive flow of life: turbulent, painful, resilient, intelligent, gropingly moral, beautifully observed.  It's hard to write about fathers and sons — or rather, it is hard for fathers and sons to write about one another.  But Lou Ureneck has done it brilliantly. ”— Lance Morrow, author of The Chief: A Memoir of Fathers and Sons
 
“This is a very rich memoir: part outdoor adventure story, menacing bears and all; part travel book about the Alaskan outback; part fish story (in the most literal and informative sense); and part personal drama about a father re-bonding with his son." -- Justin Kaplan, Winner of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography

About the Author

LOU URENECK is an outdoorsman, professor and father. In his 20 years at the Portland (Maine) Press Herald, where he rose from reporter to editor, Lou crusaded to protect the state's environment against clear-cutting and commercial over-fishing. He was an editor-in-residence at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University and page-one editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer. He is now chairman of the Department of Journalism at Boston University. His work has been published in The New York Times, Boston Globe and Field & Stream. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (September 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312371519
• ISBN-13: 978-0312371517
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #312,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #17 in Books > Travel > United States > States > Alaska

More About the Author

Lou Ureneck teaches journalism at Boston University. He is a former newspaper editor, in Maine and Philadelphia. He was born in New Brunswick, N.J. HIs book, "Backcast," won the National Outdoor Book Award for literary merit.

He blogs about his cabin in Maine at www.mainecabinblog.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alaskan fishing adventure and father/son story, September 20, 2007

By 

D. Kallas (Denville, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska (Hardcover)

I am not an avid fly fisherman like the author of this book, Lou Ureneck, but, I was still riveted by this suspenseful and emotional true story of a father and son fishing trip along the Kanektok river in Alaska. Unforeseen challenges arise as the two navigate their way down the river and through their own damaged relationship. On one level this is an Alaskan fishing adventure complete with menacing bears and harrowing physical perils. On another even more absorbing level, it is the story of a recently divorced father trying to reconcile with his teenage son. The author recalls episodes from his own fatherless childhood and wrestles with his feeling of abandonment. His long search to understand what being a father means takes shape as he reaches out to his own son along the Kanektok. Ureneck is excellent at conjuring up detailed images of the Alaskan wilderness. His enthusiasm for fishing and the outdoors is contagious. A good read, especially for outdoor enthusiasts and parents, especially fathers.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Of Flys and Fatherhood, September 24, 2007

By 

SJ (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska (Hardcover)

This is a terrific book for anyone who is a parent, who hearkens to the snap of the line over the water, or who simply admires good writing. Ureneck is all three. It is filled with stunning descriptions of natural beauty and richly detailed characters the you find yourself yearning to know even better. It is also a story of adventure. There are perilous moments at the water's edge and a chilling confrontation with a menacing she-bear. But mostly it is a testament to the persistence of a father's faith.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An absorbing and totally engaging read, September 23, 2007

By 

Elizabeth R - See all my reviews

This review is from: Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska (Hardcover)

Lou Ureneck is a terrific writer--not surprising for a seasoned newspaperman--and an astonishingly good storyteller. From the moment the reader joins Ureneck and his teenage son, Adam, in their small tent in the Alaskan wilderness, through the poignant journey back through Ureneck's past and relationships with his own mother, father, and stepfather, the story never flags, delivering the excitement and suspense of a fictional account. The human story is told within the context of some of the most evocative descriptions of the natural world I have ever encountered. Best of all, and at the heart of the book, is the deeply involving search of a divorced father to re-establish the bonds that once had tied him securely to his son. This is simply a must read.