Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Backcast is a wondrous read from a writer who is a true prose poet. Whether the author is taking you into the wilds of Alaska, snaring a salmon in the Kanektok River, or rediscovering a compelling relationship with his son, the reader is totally captivated by the story. In my opinion, the sheer beauty and honesty of the writing deserve your attention.

I am not a passionate fisherman and do not hunt...but this book hooked me. It is as much an adventure story as a memoir of nature and heart, The clean prose cuts painfully to the bone, describing the unanticipated consequences of ambition, achievement, abandonment, love, betrayal and hubris. The narrative is unique ..... E B White and Henry Beetle Hough overlaid on a contemporary landscape?

I have recommended (or will give this book as gifts) to friends who love New England, Alaska, Martha's Vineyard (just a few paragraph's in it about that beloved island) nature and fishing. I will also gift it to those working to understand identity, community the ravages of broken families and how men(or at least this man) thinks.

I read the tezt in almost one sitting and look forward to the author's next work....not because I want to know more about his life...but because his writing helps me understand my own.

Backcast moved me with the same power and heart as Angela's Ashes and touched me as did A River Runs Through It. I, like Ureneck, am an outdoors person and a divorced father of adult children. His writing vividly paints the backdrop of his story -- the Alaskan wilderness. You can smell the forest and hear the splashing of the river water. His recollection of his childhood among struggling and troubled adults is wrenching. He turns an unsparing glass on his own parenting and the pain of trying to connect with his adolescent son. The result of these three beautifully woven tales is a book that should be read by all young fathers and that will be appreciated by parents of any age.

There are a plethora of reasons to recommend Backcast, but undoubtedly one of the most persuasive is that the reader does not have to be passionate or knowledgeable about fishing to derive enjoyment and enlightenment from Lou Ureneck's memoir. Although Ureneck is an avid fisherman and outdoorsman, the pivotal themes of his book do not balance upon his conflicts with the river or nature; they play out instead on the battleground of the familial sphere. Accordingly, Ureneck uses a fishing trip with his son to the implacable wilderness of western Alaska, as a means to chart parallel emotional and psychological journeys.

All of Ureneck's travels are immensely rewarding for the reader. In particular, the narratives recounted from Ureneck's childhood stand out as equally entertaining, revelatory, and poignant. In particular, Ureneck infuses the likes of his mother, his brother, and his surrogate father, Johnny with a quotidian authenticity and emotional texture that is not often found in memoirs. And while Ureneck's story often traverses tragedy, the authorial tone never descends to maudlin or melodramatic levels.

Best of all, Ureneck reveals himself to be an emphatically honest writer and storyteller, entirely devoid of self-aggrandizement or self-pity. He narrates the deterioration of his marriage with great equanimity, and is not reticent about reproving himself for the ensuing distrust and resentment his children, especially his son, feel toward him for apparently breaking up the family. Such assiduous introspection distinguishes Backcast as an eminently worthwhile and elucidating read. There are no facile insights or self-help mantras in Backcast, for this is not a book about feel-good moral redemption; it is a work impelled by the infinitely more interesting perspective of life as an intellectual and conscientious struggle.

Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of AlaskaThis book was well written and easy to read, however, I was fooled by the cover illustration and the jacket notes. If you are looking for a book about a fishing adventure this is not it. This story is primarily about a man that has questions about his self worth as a father. The story is about his life and the choices he has made. He seems to be punishing himself, even today, for things others would shrug off and move on. Perhaps the over concern he shows is a result of his childhood doubts which are frequently shown in children who do not have, or think they don't have, strong parental figures.

I am a single Father whose son is now grown with a family of his own. As I look back on us growing up with each other the most special times were on an athletic field or on our Father and Son fishing trips. My business selling software takes me all over the United States and a new sale in Louisiana when my son was ten years old changed our lives forever. The owner of the business I sold in Bogalusa was named Charlie and when I was there to make the sale, his high school buddy "Tub" was in the office and they started good-naturedly arguing as to who was the better fisherman. This male ritual of "BUSTING EACH OTHER'S CHOPS" culminated with Tub telling everyone within shouting distance that whenever he found a "hot" fishing hole, Charlie would start casting into his "hole" because he wasn't as good a fisherman as he was. After witnessing with joy and amazement this All-American fishing "shout-down" I said; "If you let me bring my son to Louisiana and take us fishing with you, I'll give you free software training!" And so... the first of what would become eight yearly, Father-Son fishing trip memories of our life were born.

With those fishing adventures lovingly embossed in my heart I bought this book. The "tickler" review of this book centered on a Father and Son fishing trip to Alaska. Unfortunately for the author, (Lou Ureneck) his experience with his son Adam was not so lovingly remembered. Lou had divorced his wife of over twenty years and his son had always seemed to blame him. Things never seemed to be the same between Father and Son since the divorce. Lou saw this trip as a last gasp in rebuilding a loving bond before Adam went to college. At the time of this summer trip to Alaska Lou was 49 and Adam was 18. From the time they arrived in Alaska Adam acted like Lou was either non-existent, dumb, a nuisance or all three. When they finally made it into the raft, and on to the river that would occupy most of the story, Lou felt like he was being treated with the same level of importance by his son as a "bologna sandwich". The manner of which the author turns phrases is at times intelligently short and powerful: "It was easy to turn him into a fisherman. I just put him near water." And at other times elegantly beautiful and poetic, as when he was describing the constantly changing Alaskan landscape as their unrelenting trip progresses down the river: "The entire landscape seemed to be breaking into shards of light and color like a crystal held up to the sun and turned first this way and then that."

What starts off as a story of an Alaskan fishing trip begins to become long flash backs to the Author's life story. Lou starts sharing with the reader his childhood that included his Father leaving his family when he was young, leaving him and his brother to lead an almost nomadic life with his mother living in over seventeen different homes. As Lou retells his childhood years, he seems to be psychoanalyzing himself at the same time. When he writes that his mother's boyfriend Johnny, an unreliable alcoholic who becomes her second husband, and becomes more of a Father figure than his natural Father, with almost all the fond memories tied to fishing, his despair due to the chasm between him and Adam becomes even more daunting, when he digs up the memory of Johnny simply getting up and walking out of the house without ever coming back.

When the story focuses on the river, we're involved with protective, potentially murderous, giant bears, bad weather, raging rapids, large assortments and sizes of fish to catch, dwindling food supplies, and the constantly growing abyss between Father and Son. Lou felt his son emanated nothing but "sarcasm, annoyance, and distance." A large portion of the book is dedicated to the author's life story rather than the fishing trip. The trip is more an analogy of the Father-Son relationship Lou never had as a child, and he is giving one last soulful, final, gasp of parental effort, to transform his relationship with Adam into what he always dreamed of and never got as a son with a Father.

At the end of this book I found myself feeling very said for Lou because I know what treasure Lou was searching for at the end of his personal rainbow. On February 12th 2003, the night before I was to have brain surgery for a tumor that could very well (and almost did) end my life, I went for a walk with my son and told him what I wanted done with the material things I would leave behind if I didn't make it, and then we reminisced about something we both agreed 100% on: WE BOTH SAID THE GREATEST FATHER & SON TIMES WE EVER HAD IN OUR LIFE WERE OUR FISHING TRIPS IN LOUISIANA! I know that a shared feeling like that with his son Adam, was the treasure Lou was looking for in Alaska.

Lou Ureneck's memoir, "Backcast" is the story of a good man committed to examining the bonds of love between self and family. He allows us to accompany him as he undertakes this journey with a soul searching vigilance for truth, the sometimes painful but always authentic insights on life, and the consequences of giving and receiving love. His gift for storytelling, willingness to work hard, and his well honed craft as a writer combine to make "Backcast" a treasure.