The Sky Fisherman: A Novel [Paperback]

Craig Lesley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 1996

The lives of young Culver, his twice-married mother, and his charismatic uncle Jake have been always overshadowed by the death of Culver's father in a fishing accident. When a suspicious fire destroys the town mill and three murders occur, Culver is engulfed by the dangers he finds lurking in the place he'd come to call home. Love, death, coming of age, and Native American spiritual beliefs flow together with the forces of nature in this novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Culver, a mild-mannered and likable young teen growing up in a small Northwestern town, is trying to sort out a great deal of confusing stuff: his father's drowning death; the bigotry evident against local Indians; his mother's dislike for his charismatic Uncle Jake; the way his outlaw stepfather, wanted for torching a railroad compound, keeps popping in and out of his life. Culver's interests run to the physical-basketball, fly-fishing and working at his uncle's bait-and-tackle shop. It's there that he receives an informal education at the feet of a group of men-dubbed the "backroom boys" by narrator Culver-who hang around the store and who include a cropduster, a glue-mixer at the local lumber mill, a baker, a local radio personality and an enigmatic Indian sheriff. Culver is seduced by the group's easy joviality and his Uncle Jake's heroic streak, which manifests when a fire claims the mill. But the boy discovers a secret involving his dead father that drives a wedge between himself and his uncle, and that threatens to make an adult out of him before his time. Lesley (Winterkill) is a smooth and talented writer, with a pleasing touch for detail and an unwavering confidence. His material tends to the sentimental: his central metaphor, a skyful of invented constellations as related to Culver by Uncle Jake, is an easy image, neither compelling nor powerful. But Culver is an unusually appealing character, and when the novel's close toes a maudlin line, it feels almost earned.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Lesley's first two novels--Winterkill (1984) and River Song (1989)--examined the struggle of Native Americans to preserve the wisdom of their ancestors in the face of opposition from the bureaucratic white world. This time the tenuous coexistence between whites and Indians in the contemporary Northwest is again an element in the story, but the focus is on the coming-of-age of a young white teenager, Culver, growing up with his mother and his uncle Jake, a river guide and the owner of a sporting goods store. Lurking beneath the perfectly captured camaraderie of Jake and the good ol' boys hanging out at the store is the unresolved question of how Culver's father died in a river accident. Answering this question forces Culver to confront his family's flawed history and eventually leads him to his own epiphany on the river. Lesley has a real feel for the way the intimacy and the pettiness of small-town life push and pull both young and old. Though the novel contains a few too many flights of fly-fishing-inspired lyricism, it further establishes the author as a major voice in the fiction of the American West. Bill Ott --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Picador (August 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312147384
• ISBN-13: 978-0312147389
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,447,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fishing for Greatness, December 14, 1999

By 

"svid" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sky Fisherman: A Novel (Paperback)

Easily coined as a coming of age story, Craig Lesley's brilliant work *The Sky Fisherman* contains as many unpredictable currents as the river which flows through it.

Lesley establishes characters with ease, embellishment and energy. His language suits the people he creates, the landscapes described and, most importantly, the town that combines both entities. He does not shy away from intriguing subjects like death, mourning, sorrow, lost dreams, prejudice, love, arson and murder.

Told through the eyes of young Culver, the protagonist whose father was "lost" on the river Lost while fishing with his uncle, Lesley allows him to know more than he should but retain a striking amount of innocence throughout. Although Culver admits to flashes of his future such as, "Deep in the marrow of my bones, I felt that nothing was going to turn out as we had hoped, and I felt sick for all of us, especially my mother.

Culver's mother, who facilitated the move back to Gateway, the place of her husband's death and the home of his brother, Jake, is sensible, likable and sometimes surprising. The strength she needs to leave her second husband, Riley Walker, is mustered one day in a cafe which served bad cottage cheese and sour pears.

Culver doesn't mind the new surroundings. Riley walked his family from one railroad town to another on his general decent with the Union Pacific Railroad. Landing in his last two dog town, losing his wife and adopted son finally drives him over the edge, causing him to torch the town before turning into a vagrant.

The future looks bright for Culver and his mother, they both have jobs, they have their own house and they are rid of Riley, they believe. Culver works at this Uncle Jake's adventure outfitting store and is often left in charge when Jake is leading fishing trips with the "dudes."

The colorful characters who grace the threshold of Jake's store are as interesting as their names and stories. Gigantic Gabriel Webster, "Gab" is the station manager for the local radio station. He continually tries to sell advertising and consistently sees ways for the town and businesses to grow. Buzzy Marek is a crop duster who "swoops so low he's got to burp to clear the barbed-wire fences." Sniffy St. John is a night watchman and glue mixer for the ply wood mill. Seaweed Swanson is a retired chief petty officer of the United States Navy but has trouble with the clock and "actually spent two extra years in the Navy before realizing he could retire with full pensions after twenty" he blamed this on "too many trips across the international date line."

All of these characters also have mugs hanging in the Oasis cafe with "nicknames labeling their coffee cups...I (Culver) enjoyed trying to match the customers with their colorful monikers: Big Joe, Babe, Grasshopper, Heavy Duty, Short Stack, Skook." And Culver often walks home alone from the cafe in order to "study the town at night and consider how I fit in it."

Just as the colorful characters cannot be ignored, the powerful force of the river takes on characteristics of its own. Culver becomes a man on this river by not only challenging the rapids which claimed his father's life, but also pulling his first dead body on the Lost and almost getting pulled under by a panicked tourist. Jake contends that "There's a fool born a minute and only one dies a day."

Also surging through this novel, are the beliefs and teachings of generations. Jake and Culver's father took his boys fly fishing on the river frequently. Jake remembers that "Whatever he knew about the river, that's what he saw in the sky....There's the Sky Fisherman. Those stars closest to the mountain are the hip boots. Straight above is his vest, and the little curved line of stars is a pipe jutting out his mouth. That long row of curved stars makes up his fly rod. From the deep bend in that rod, I'd say he's hooked a dandy." Jake passes on to Culver important family history and respect for the nature surrounding him.

Another current swirling in this tale is Native American mythology, beliefs and humor. Gateway is situated next to Hollywood, a reservation, which is also plagued with scandal, murder and suspicion. The tribal policeman, Billyum Bruised Head, befriends Culver due partly to his relation to Jake and also his display bravery.

Unfortunately for the characters, there is also a deep undertow which pulls at the inhabitants, sometimes cursing their dreams forever. Culver witnesses extreme drought which results in unbeleivable fires and more men lost.

Lesley's previous books, *Winterkill* and *River Song* are equally as intriguing novels. His ability to establish characters and his art of storytelling are phenomenal. Even those not thrilled about fly fishing can enjoy this latest effort and those who are will have an enhanced read. Lesley is also a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest and currently lives in Portland, Ore., which is obvious from his poignant topical descriptions.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great novel by Lesley, December 4, 2000

By 

Edward Bosnar - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sky Fisherman: A Novel (Paperback)

Craig Lesley has the uncanny ability to draw readers into his narrative immediately. His characterizations and dialogue are so realistic that it's often difficult to believe his works are fiction. In `The Sky Fisherman,' Lesley writes something of a coming of age story, in which the book's narrator Culver Martin comes to terms with his father's death years earlier and the circumstances that surround and haunt relations between himself, his mother and his uncle. At the same time, Lesley provides a real picture of relations in a small town near an Indian reservation. Here Lesley brings to life the complex feelings and resentments on both sides of this line, i.e. among the town's mill-workers, farmers, etc. and the Indians on the other. Also well-rendered is the love for and obsession with fishing and hunting on the part of the locals, which the author brings to life in his evocative descriptions of the landscape - although he fictionalizes many place-names, it's obvious that he is referring to the Deschutes River in Oregon. This is certainly Lesley's best novel.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Energizing and provocative, September 12, 2000

By 

James Stripes - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sky Fisherman: A Novel (Paperback)

Craig Lesley is one of those writers that well-meaning acquaintances tried to push on me several years ago. Hence, I resisted much of his work, and reluctantly read _Winterkill_ one afternoon out of a sense of obligation. After reading _The Sky Fisherman_, I'll likely become one of those who pushes his work on others.

The story is narrated by Culver, a teenager at the time of the events in the book, and told from a point of view some time later. These events were decisive moments in Culver's coming of age, and marked a critical time of transition for the network of small towns at the center. Young Culver must find the way to deal with the traumas of his father's death, his step-father's failures, his mother's fears, and more adventure helping his uncle Jake than most young men are called upon to survive. Culver's drive to know more about his father brings out buried conflicts that threaten to destroy the little bit of stability that anchors his existence. Lesley gives Culver a voice through these struggles that offers a gripping narrative. Culver's youth and inexperience prior to the momentous events come through clearly in his reflections as an adult. There is wisdom in Culver's perspective, but Lesley avoids the pitfalls of forcing this wisdom on the reader.

In some respects, this book is like a large number of other coming-of-age Western novels, from _Huckleberry Finn_ to _A River Runs Through It_. With its setting in border towns near an Indian Reservation, and communities where the economic life centers on lumber and river recreation, the book aptly reflects life in the rural West. Unlike so many other such novels, however, Lesley allows a sensitive and perceptive portrayal of Indian-white relations into the heart of the book, but without making race relations the driving force of the narrative. In doing so, he may get closer to the heart of the West than most of the novelists and historians who have made the effort.

This novel is a serious work of fiction, entertaining and provocative. It stimulated me as a reader in several ways. I'm eager to return to _Winterkill_, as well as Lesley's other novels. I'm stimulated to make a dent in my pile of unread books by a host of other writers. And, I'm provoked to write by Lesley's powerful handling of the language. In addition, reading this book the week prior to a steelheading trip on the Deschutes River also proved to be good timing. This book energized me in a fundamentally important way: it reminded me of the reasons money saved from avoiding a cable-TV subscription is well-spent on literature.