Author: William Plummer
Publisher: PENGUIN/PUTNAM (PENGUIN ACCT), Jan 2002
Binding: Softcover
ISBN: 1-58567-254-8
Synopsis
A moving intergenerational memoir. Bill sets out to understand his father's curious allegiance to the sport & uses the diary as a point of access to what he thought was a distant & enigmatic man. 5x8.5 inches, 159 pgs.
More Information
On the South Branch of the Raritan River in New Jersey, Bill Plummer casts his line in the hope that fly fishing might fortify him in the face of a failed marriage, the death of his father, and a faltering career. Inspired by the discovery of his father's fly fishing diary, Bill sets out to understand his father's curious allegiance to the sport and uses the diary as a point of access to what he thought was a distant and enigmatic man. As he comes to delight in the peculiar pleasures of his father's favorite pastime, he finds in it points of tangency to his own son and the strength for a second marriage.
WHAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING:
"I love this account of how a dead father's diary and the need to bond with his own young son led William Plummer to a late love affair with trout fishing. Wishing My Father Well is a deeply moving story, told with wit and drama, finally triumphant; and wherewhere it records an obsessive's love of fly-fishing." --Nick Lyons, author of My Secret Fishing Life and In Praise of Wild Trout
Wishing My Father Well is a stylish and companionable primer on fly-fishing, fathering, wooing women, and other of the various arts involved in doing things right. Yet it is also, in its brief course, a book about living life wrong, and in this way is a bracing moral testimony. I found it disturbing and raw and I couldn't quit reading it." -- Richard Ford
"A warm, heartfelt book that will change forever the way you feel about fishing and fathers." --James McBride, author of The Color of Water
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
William Plummer (1945-2001) lived in Montclair, New Jersey, and was an editor at People magazine. An avid fly fisher and the author of several books of non-fiction, he wrote for such publications as The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, Esquire, Newsweek, Hudson Review, and Men's Journal.
