The River Home: An Angler's Explorations [Hardcover]

Jerry Dennis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1998

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 comparisons with such luminaries as John Voelker, Sigurd Olson, and Aldo Leopold. The River Home is a testament to the ways that fishing, travel, and nature can put us in deep contact with the world and with ourselves. Ranging from northern Michigan to Iceland, Chile, and the fabled rivers of the American West, it explores and celebrates the simple pleasures (and complex challenges) of family life, the allure of giant trout, the sacredness of secret places, and such wonders as bad weather, quirky fishing companions, and the occasional naked angler. The River Home is a passionate record of life outdoors, crafted with clarity, insight, and wit by a writer gifted with an instinct for what matters.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One can expect most books by fly fishermen to contain the inevitable profiles of fellow anglers and tales of secret spots laden with trout, their locations generously revealed so they become secret no longer. This memoir by Michigander Dennis (A Place on the Water) offers that and much more, which makes his perceptive book interesting to a wider audience. There are musings on individuals' notions of home at various stages in their lives and the influence of travel that can make a return home a revelation. There are also thoughts about the twin themes of abundance and waste in the history of the American Midwest and West. Other highlights are Dennis's trips overseas to the Chilean Andes, where enormous trout are an anomaly in lakes and streams, and, even more intriguing, to Iceland in search of the Atlantic salmon, where fishing comes dear at $1000 for a license, plus an average daily expense of $500 for accommodations, food and incidentals. There are salient observations about life ("Sometimes tradition is just folly perpetuated") and a few of Dennis's short stories are appended, most of which are uninspired except for "Tom Dean's Boy."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Convinced nobody knows beans about why fish bite, Dennis (A Place on the Water, 1993) eschews the usual nuts and bolts of fishing in favor of entertaining personal essays laced with good humor and middle-age nostalgia. The author, who recently moved to a farmhouse on a peninsula in Lake Michigans Grand Traverse Bay, writes that the concept of home tends to expand as we grow older . . . to include the rivers and lakes where we fish and boat, the woods where we hunt and hike, every place that has emotional and historical significance. The wistfulness behind that statement keynotes many of these pieces. In A Trout for the Old Guy, Dennis comes across a cigar box full of dry flies tied by a crotchety old fisherman he hadnt thought about in 25 years. Elsewhere, he notes that there are three days of fishing he never misses: opening day, for obvious reasons; the great Hex hatch on Michigans rivers in late June, and the last day of the season, that final day to be taken slowly, like a last meal. Dennis has some fun discussing good fishing buddies and what qualifies them as such, and he takes dozens of 24-inch rainbows from the Rio Puelo in Chile, along with a 5-pound brook trout, as bulky as a steroid junky. One of the best pieces, and by far the funniest, is Fish Naked, wherein he pokes fun at the sartorial correctness of catalogue-outfitted anglers. He harks back to a 1970s trip to the Firehole in Yellowstone National Park when he and a friend happened on a naked man and woman fishing side by side. Maybe nude angling was a local tradition. . . . Maybe it was a tactic. . . . Not quite up to his earlier efforts, but Denniss descriptive writing and his sense of fishing as serious fun keeps this one afloat. (illustrations) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 227 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st ed edition (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312185944
• ISBN-13: 978-0312185947
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #475,949 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jerry Dennis (www.jerrydennis.net) is an acclaimed nature, science, and outdoor writer whose essays have appeared in such publications as Audubon, Smithsonian, Orion, National Geographic Traveler, and the New York Times. His books have appeared on national bestseller lists, have been translated into five languages, and are taught in many universities and high schools. Among Dennis's awards are the Michigan Author of the Year Award, the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, Michigan State University's Great Lakes Culture Award, and three Best Book of the Year awards from the Outdoor Writers Association of America.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I LOVED it!, January 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The River Home: An Angler's Explorations (Hardcover)

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!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jerry Dennis elevates the personal essay to a new level., June 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The River Home: An Angler's Explorations (Hardcover)

"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.

4.0 out of 5 stars beautiful Michigan writing, January 24, 2005

By 

Gregg Perez "Goyo" (Tecumseh, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: River Home: An Angler's Explorations (Paperback)

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.