The Norman Maclean Reader. Essays, Letters, and Other Writing by the Author of A River Runs through It. Edited by O. Alan Weltzien. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008. Cloth: $27.50, 260 Pages.

As he proved with two books both written in his old age, A River Runs through It (1976) and Young Men and Fire (1992), Norman Maclean is one of the masters of the American language.  National Book Award winner Pete Dexter spoke for a generation when he said of Maclean’s first and only book of fiction that the title story “filled holes inside” him “that had been so long in the making that I’d stopped noticing they were there.” 

And Dexter doesn’t even fish.

Few other first lines in all of American literature are as famous as the words that introduced Maclean to the literary world: “In our family there was no clear line between fishing and religion.”

And, of course, there wasn’t, either.

The only other first line of American fiction that might actually compete with Maclean’s for easy recognition in the collective mind of the general public came from another American writer, who opened his fishing story by writing, “Call me Ishmael.”  That writer was a guy named Herman Melville, and the book was Moby Dick.  The question that haunts Maclean’s readers is basically the one this new book tries to answer: Why did such a fine writer write so little and so late—as his son, John, a bestselling author, once put the matter.

It should surprise nobody, then, that when he died in August of 1990, Maclean left behind parts of another masterpiece-in-the-making: an unfinished book on the most famous battle in American military history: Custer’s defeat in the valley of the Little Big Horn. Maclean’s treatment of the battle, especially of the northern Cheyennes, calls to mind Evan S. Connell’s brilliant prose documentary, Son of the Morning Star, as well as September 11, 2001.

Had Maclean finished the book, who knows what might have happened? Instead, Norman Maclean did what his father, the Rev Maclean, had taught him to do as a boy whenever he wrote anything:  now throw it away. And he threw it away. Even as an amanuensis taking orders from beyond the grave, I’m unsure what Maclean would think about seeing parts of his unfinished manuscript in print. Not much, probably.

Regardless, Maclean was generally reported by his students at the University of Chicago to have known more than anyone else about two historic figures: Aristotle and General George Armstrong Custer. He also taught Shakespeare once a year just to remind himself “what great writing is like.” Of these three figures in Maclean’s personal pantheon, The Norman Maclean Reader deals only with Custer.

Among dozens to whom he regularly wrote, Maclean’s correspondents are limited to four people: (1) historian Robert Utley, whom Maclean mentored by mail; (2) Marie Boroff, his former student and now professor emeritus at Yale; (3) Nick Lyons, probably the single most important writer about flyfishing in the United States next to Maclean; and (4) Lois Jansson, the widow of Forest Service Ranger Bob Jansson, whose district included Mann Gulch and the fire that Maclean immortalized in his second book.  As beautiful and haunting as parts of the unfinished Custer manuscript are, because the book is incomplete these excerpts tease, entertain, and educate but never wholly satisfy. Still, these chapters alone, along with the letters, are worth the cost of the book.

Because fly fishers are generally more curious about the world, and have written more about their art than the practitioners of all other “sports,” they should find plenty to like and even to love here in this collection of the Old Man’s ephemera. However, it’s still a shame that more sides of Maclean’s character—fly fisherman, logger, firefighter, scholar, teacher, husband, father, son—are not more fully represented. He was a master, for instance, of personal invective, and his great 1981 letter to Charles Elliott at Alfred A. Knopf Publishers ranks right up there with the best f--k-you prose of all time. 

Having included that letter or Maclean’s essay on the madness of King Lear may or may not have fit the editorial scheme for the volume, but it would have been the kind of symbolic gesture best in keeping with Maclean’s complex personality, the kind of daring stylistic move that he often made on his own without any help from an editor. When his old friend, Bud Moore, asked him once why he always included a whore in his fictional stories, Maclean answered that he wanted his stories to sell.   

Certainly, including Maclean’s essay on the madness of King Lear or his masterpiece written on behalf of all rejected authors might have put off or offended some readers, but it also might have sold a lot more books.  As it is, only a ghost runs through this one.

What's with all

the anglers in new gear,

and what's with all  

the spiders and whitefish?

It's hardly March, 

and you'd think 

they'd all pulled 

the plug on winter.

They're stalking stuff

over the warm rocks,

pecking at pupae

in their boxes or

over the shallows

like there's no tomorrow,

which is just as well

since tomorrow's 

supposed to be 

back in the teens,

back to ice shelves

and slush in the water,

back to our dens and vices,

back under our rocks or

deep in the stacked water,

back to dormancy, 

bobbins, feathers,

and whiskey.

But for now 

in this brief heat,

let's keep

the river posted:

MIDGES BEWARE OF

WHITEFISH AND SPIDERS.

WHITEFISH BEWARE 

OF PEOPLE AND OSPREYS.

PEOPLE BEWARE

OF PEOPLE.

Pleasure Park

I came back for another season,

to walk caliche paths

among the dead grass and poison oak,

to count winter’s foot prints

and watch the fool indicator

dredge slow moving fish

from the depths of memory.

Leroy sits and smokes, thick glasses

and empty pint glass warping the light

in his eyes. He holds the scowl

of ten thousand jet boat launches.

I wait for the canyon’s mouth to open,

skeletal forms of trees line red strips

of rock, one gigantic yawn of cactus

buried beneath drifts of snow.

Once owned, raw freedom becomes

nothing. I find myself at his bar,

where he waits as if we’ve never met,

pours himself another pint before putting

his hand down, asking “What’ll ya have.”

When I leave, geese at the confluence

push away like black and white breaths.

That there should be a spring, and that

these cold waters must make room

for warmth seems impossible.

Still, I turn the corner above the power lines

and watch late morning’s first light

merge with a midge hatch

like a series of small bubbles rising

through the soft light of liquid amber.

The plan, called a Biological Opinion (BiOp) was originally submitted to the court by the Bush administration. Instead of kicking it to the curb, the Obama team made a few additions, known as an Adaptive Management Implementation Plan (AMIP), but the plan has once again failed to pass legal muster in court. Judge Redden has again made it clear that it was either fix the plan, or risk losing it, so the Obama administration announced Friday that it will revamp its plan for recovering salmon on the mighty Columbia River.

Judge Redden’s letter makes it pretty clear:

“I will not sign an order of voluntary remand that effectively relieves federal defendants of their obligation to use the best available science and consider all important aspects of the problem. This court will not dictate the scope or substance of federal defendants’ remand, but federal defendants must comply with the [Endangered Species Act] in preparing any amended/supplemental biological opinion.”

But the feds have yet to listen and Redden has twice before rejected federal blueprints for Columbia Basin salmon and has given the Obama administration multiple opportunities and more than a year to fix the one currently before his court. We still don’t have a plan that’s going to save salmon.

The Western Division of the American Fisheries Society (WDAFS) released a scientific review of the Obama administration’s proposed additions to the federal salmon plan for the Columbia-Snake River Basin. The society’s assessment concludes that AMIP, is not aggressive, rigorous, or specific enough to help bolster imperiled runs of wild salmon and steelhead.

Jim Martin, former chief of fisheries for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said: “These experts looked at the AMIP and asked two all-important questions: does it do enough to help struggling salmon, and does it utilize the best science? Unfortunately, the answer to both questions appears to be no.”

With true recovery of wild salmon and steelhead in question, fishing and river communities have been left to bear the brunt with unprecedented closures and restrictions from Southeast Alaska to Monterey Bay, Calif. Fishing communities are also at the forefront, urging NOAA to create a viable plan.

Liz Hamilton, executive director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association. “A thoughtful, science-based plan will allow for the rebuilding of recreational and commercial fishing jobs, while also protecting other stakeholders throughout the Basin. It’s science, but it’s not rocket science; we can do this, provided we put salmon biology in the driver’s seat where it belongs.”

 So, what’s up? With all of these folks pushing for a solid plan, why is NOAA failing miserably?

Politics are trumping science again. Where the political pressure to flout the science is coming from remains unclear, leaving us to speculate. Many fingers are pointing at Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Secretary of the Commerce Department, which oversees NOAA. A former Governor from Washington State, Locke no doubt maintains ties to Washington Senators Murray and Cantwell. To date, Senators Murray and Cantwell remain unwilling to even discuss alternatives to the status quo in the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Seems like more than a coincidence.

A recent Daily Astorian editorial said of the BiOp under Locke’s leadership at NOAA: “in no way are they the kind of bold actions that will convincingly alter the sad end game of the Pacific Northwest's "totem" creature.”

I couldn’t agree more. The science is clear, the law is clear, and Judge Redden has given NOAA one more chance to get this right. I hope they listen. It’s high time we take strong actions to save these fish, our rivers and ourselves.

For more information visit: WildSalmon.org

Special thanks to Bobby Hayden, Emily Nuchols, and Jeff Hickman for background information

Whatever It Is You're Taking

Palmered hackles on sun-roil owe more

to floatant than this clipped Corgi-hair 

body Uncle Mort tied drunk on Schnapps.

How many times have you seen this much

neon green backing howl toward the gullet

of a woozy gold brown that fought like

a side-hooked snorkel-hoser?  And it's

always just before the sun's fat goldfish starts 

hoovering flakes off fall's cobalt.  When your

brass head soft weight keeps freezing up so 

you have to stuff it down your waders and 

wedge it under your dick to soften it up

is generally when you give up and fish 

midges dry between slush and ice hunks 

that look like Liberace's piano until you 

take another hit of whatever it is you're

taking and they look like some glass blower 

blew the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Did someone say spring, or is that just

the sound your five-weight makes when

you cast without ice in your guides?

Stripping a wad of tinsel and chartreuse

marabou where this spring feeds into

chocolate bunny runoff, you can't see 

a foot down, so you sink that far again 

into the soft bottom and go in over your 

waders while a pissed off kilo of rainbow 

arcs up under the pussy willows and snaps

off your Bugger where the currents meet.  

Damn, don't that just deep fry your clams

into fritters, pretty much like when summer

float-trippers start their Suburban shuttle

and you can only see baloney boats and 

MacKenzies all the way up God's green ass?

Live from the World Headquarters
Kea C. Hause esq.

Why hasn’t the day’s peril

yet soaked the bank’s gravel

for pupa, larva, nymph, and prey?

Maybe it has and I just can’t tell.

All I know is the brown still mines

my mimic here, much like before,

a panner after pretty plugs,

coyoting wagon wheels

without a surface sign.

But like the forty-niner,

this brown long jumped my claim.

What once held only whities

soon followed drifts off veins,

crevicing sinkers between colors,

pulling bonanza from borrasca,

a shindy in the gangue.

Now I am grubsteak

wading the brown’s gumbo,

a sourdough with a shutter

smelling of dreams with fur and hair,

stampmilling it here between moss and rod,

the river a breath and sight for two.

Who’s fishing who?

Maybe a horse throws it to the wind,

but soon we‘re both back to the lode

high grading placers,

the Stillwater our sluice,

a memory of things to come.

Here's an easy way to get involved: We’ve posted “Five Things You Can Do” on the Wild Steelhead Coalition website--the goal being making it easier for anglers to participate in the process of saving wild steelhead.

As you can see by the numbers, the situation here in Washington is about as dire as it can get. This is a fact emphasized by rapidly shrinking fishing opportunities, as all the major Puget Sound rivers are now closed for what has traditionally been the peak of the spring fly fishing season. The Olympic Peninsula, in addition to absorbing all the displaced Puget Sound anglers, is hardly faring better. In short, it’s time to get together and make some serious changes before it’s too late.

Thanks for the support.