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The Everlasting Stream: A True Story of Rabbits, Guns, Friends, and Family
A former city reporter recounts how his experiences with four hunter friends from the country changed his life over the course of a dozen years and how he sought to impart their outlook to his teenage son years later.
Hardcover
First published September 9, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 30, 2022
"Memorable moments are like waking versions of lucid dreams. We are within them and outside them at once as they are happening."
I would've never picked this book up on my own had my dad not asked me to read it. It's about hunting, for starters, an activity I couldn't have less interest in, and it seemingly focuses on "the good ol' days" of men's men. And the book is both of those things, through and through. Suffice to say; I started reading it with more than my fair share of skepticism. So, consider my surprise when, after reading it over several months in bits and pieces, I find myself stifling emotions during the final pages.
The book is about hunting, and the descriptions of the activity and the processes involved were not something I would confess to having enjoyed. I love animals more than people most days, which means it's a testament to Harrington's lovely, thoughtful writing that I ended up savoring the book as much as I did. It helps that his reckoning with the act of hunting and taking a life is a crucial part of the story he's writing about, too, as it reframes the activity in a light I would have considered otherwise. He taps into the value of rituals, designated experiences, places, and motions that can transcend the actions themselves and reveal something more meaningful. Being the sentimental, nostalgic sap that I am, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that Harrington's careful recollections and examinations of these experiences felt very authentic.
I don't think there's a lot of material here that hasn't been done elsewhere, especially considering the ultimate message is one of reconciliation between different worlds. I also won't pretend that Harrington's outlook occasionally falls into privilege (something that, to his credit, he is at least partially aware of), and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he has problematic beliefs about the world. In this particular book, though, he remains mostly neutral on most of the "hot" topics and instead zeroes in on the experiences he's shared with the group of men the book focuses on. Harrington's revelations aren't shocking, but his journey to them is genuine and reads as such. His prose is also just a delight to read—precise, poignant, and sentimental without straying into self-important (at least not very often).
It's also important to note my experience with this book is undeniably shaped by my relationship with my dad and the simple truth that he's the one who put it in front of me. We differ in many ways—ideologically, intellectually, emotionally—but we're very close, and reading this, knowing that he had done the same and thought of me while doing so, affected me in ways I don't know if I quite have the words for. Regardless, the book offers a safe middle ground to explore different forms of masculinity and their influence on men of different generations, which is something I am interested in and found very rewarding. It asks us how we can continue to grow and evolve in productive, inclusive, and deconstructive ways (which is crucial) while also maintaining an appropriate recognition that not everyone who came before us was wrong in how they did things. The Everlasting Stream doesn't offer a firm direction, as it shouldn't. Instead, it presents an isolated experience and turns it into something potentially universal. It certainly felt that way to me.
This isn't a 5-star book, at least not technically, but it's getting the 5 stars anyway. It touched me in more ways than one, and I'm very glad I took my dad's advice and gave it a chance. Here are a few quotes from the book that I especially liked.
I would've never picked this book up on my own had my dad not asked me to read it. It's about hunting, for starters, an activity I couldn't have less interest in, and it seemingly focuses on "the good ol' days" of men's men. And the book is both of those things, through and through. Suffice to say; I started reading it with more than my fair share of skepticism. So, consider my surprise when, after reading it over several months in bits and pieces, I find myself stifling emotions during the final pages.
The book is about hunting, and the descriptions of the activity and the processes involved were not something I would confess to having enjoyed. I love animals more than people most days, which means it's a testament to Harrington's lovely, thoughtful writing that I ended up savoring the book as much as I did. It helps that his reckoning with the act of hunting and taking a life is a crucial part of the story he's writing about, too, as it reframes the activity in a light I would have considered otherwise. He taps into the value of rituals, designated experiences, places, and motions that can transcend the actions themselves and reveal something more meaningful. Being the sentimental, nostalgic sap that I am, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that Harrington's careful recollections and examinations of these experiences felt very authentic.
I don't think there's a lot of material here that hasn't been done elsewhere, especially considering the ultimate message is one of reconciliation between different worlds. I also won't pretend that Harrington's outlook occasionally falls into privilege (something that, to his credit, he is at least partially aware of), and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he has problematic beliefs about the world. In this particular book, though, he remains mostly neutral on most of the "hot" topics and instead zeroes in on the experiences he's shared with the group of men the book focuses on. Harrington's revelations aren't shocking, but his journey to them is genuine and reads as such. His prose is also just a delight to read—precise, poignant, and sentimental without straying into self-important (at least not very often).
It's also important to note my experience with this book is undeniably shaped by my relationship with my dad and the simple truth that he's the one who put it in front of me. We differ in many ways—ideologically, intellectually, emotionally—but we're very close, and reading this, knowing that he had done the same and thought of me while doing so, affected me in ways I don't know if I quite have the words for. Regardless, the book offers a safe middle ground to explore different forms of masculinity and their influence on men of different generations, which is something I am interested in and found very rewarding. It asks us how we can continue to grow and evolve in productive, inclusive, and deconstructive ways (which is crucial) while also maintaining an appropriate recognition that not everyone who came before us was wrong in how they did things. The Everlasting Stream doesn't offer a firm direction, as it shouldn't. Instead, it presents an isolated experience and turns it into something potentially universal. It certainly felt that way to me.
This isn't a 5-star book, at least not technically, but it's getting the 5 stars anyway. It touched me in more ways than one, and I'm very glad I took my dad's advice and gave it a chance. Here are a few quotes from the book that I especially liked.
"Memorable moments are like waking versions of lucid dreams. We are within them and outside them at once as they are happening."
"It's not the material remnants of this place that matter. It's the meaning I've made of them."
"Under the guise of telling me stories about themselves, the men have been constantly affirming the story that is their family."
"The power isn't in the memory of the story; the power is in the telling of the story. The telling is what holds the moment, makes it immortal."
October 25, 2014
A story of male bonding across time, space, and culture, and the intergenerational transmission of life's lessons about friendship, family, and earth's beauty and bounty.
January 17, 2011
Loved it. It's a great autobiographical essay on how a non-materialistic life can be so meaningful. I liked Harrington's writing style, use of characters, and even editorial tangents. Lots about rabbit hunting, the front story for an incredible backstory.
December 1, 2014
A great book about male relationships, initiation into manhood and hunting.
May 30, 2020
Truly a great book for men but also very insightful for women. I appreciate its emphasis on the many facets of relationships among men and how important those bonds are to men's contentment overall. Women, I think, forget men need strong male friendships not only for mentoring and maturing but also teach about having an inner life dictated by the mind and soul as opposed to modernity. Material goods and prestige bring only fleeting pleasures though our consumer-based economy would have us think otherwise. For lasting memories it is our relationships that sustain us through good times and challenges. This is a book I would recommend to men of all ages but especially younger men.
March 14, 2021
A series of connected essays about the subtitle “A true story of rabbits, guns, friendship and family”) I wasn’t initially much impressed but persisted and then came to the essay about his dad. It was like hitting gold. What a LOVELY essay. And the rest of the book from there was a poignant and sweet read about a man deciphering manhood, fatherhood, family, through a bi-cultural and bi-racial lens that led him from what was a high-powered journalism gig at the Washington Post to hunt rabbits at Thanksgiving with his wife’s relations in Kentucky. He left the Beltway to be a professor in Illinois later, and never looked back. I liked the book. Am passing it along to my future son-in-law!
August 30, 2021
This is a one of a kind book that everyone should read. It is the unique by product of the author being able to critically look back over a life of experience, draw conclusions and pull out lessons. Lessons of racial disparity (or lack thereof) thorughout a generation and across geographical lenses, as well as lessons of a life well lived as the author comes into his own and brings his children up with him as he matures. The story telling is second to none, the self reflection is second to none, and the authors ability to draw conclusions and make comparisons to find nuggets of wisdom that remain true is uncanny. Truly a wonderful read start to finish.
July 20, 2020
A very good book. About hunting rabbits in the south, which is fascinating, but also a deep look at masculinity, purpose and meaning.
It’s not a treatise on any of the above topics, but it is an honest account of one mans internal wrestling with modern day ambition and the deeper things of both the world and relationships.
Worth reading.
It’s not a treatise on any of the above topics, but it is an honest account of one mans internal wrestling with modern day ambition and the deeper things of both the world and relationships.
Worth reading.
September 7, 2017
This is a charming story about friendship and tradition. I admit to scanning past some of hunting blood but more enjoyed than not.
March 9, 2019
Beautiful nature writing combined with mind-numbing navel gazing about masculinity. Also it pissed me off that he never took his daughter hunting.
September 20, 2022
A darn good book. The Everlasting Stream is an Eloquently written book that gets into your mind and has you wanting a little more.
December 24, 2012
This book was recommended to me by a fellow hunter, and presumably an acquaintance of the author while I worked at the university where he now teaches (UIUC). Seven years later, I've finally gotten around to taking him up on that recommendation...
... and I'm pleased. The book is definitely more a memoir than a "book about hunting," but Harrington clearly experienced something profound in his annual rabbit hunts with his father-in-law and his friends. Indulged at first as an act of politeness for his wife's family, the annual rabbit hunt in Kentucky becomes the lens through which Harrington views his upwardly mobile, ambition-driven life in D.C. at the Washington Post. As his own son begins to grow older, Harrington articulates a perspective on the transition into fatherhood and the ways it grows from the inside out, taking root in the soil of one's own experience of being fathered.
I got a little weary of the personal biography in the middle portions of the book, but now that I've read the whole thing I do appreciate how Harrington was leading the reader into a perspective on hunting that required such apparent digressions. As a boy from a blue collar family who had worked his way into the East Coast elite, and stepped comfortably into the customs and privileges that attach thereunto, Harrington at first sees hunting as most of his colleagues do--a primitive, cruel, and pathological activity that is completely unnecessary and therefore immoral.
Particularly insightful is Harrington's reflection on the guilt inherent to taking an animal's life as a recreational activity. What justifies such an action? Firing a weapon at a gentle, doe-eyed animal and collecting its bloody, still-warm carcass to cut up and eat seems the height of barbarism. Civilization has moved on.
Harrington mentions the arguments for the necessity of wildlife management, but the real treasure of The Everlasting Stream lies in its insistence that the animals don't care how they die: but we do. Whether it's a coyote or a disease or a charge of buckshot, it matters nothing to the rabbit; but the taking of that animal's life by a human being introduces consciousness into the equation, and therefore accountability--an answer to the question "why". The animal does not ask; we do. Harrington concludes that the "guilt" is precisely what is most important about hunting, precisely because it forces the hunter to question his place in the world--why do I have a right to exist, to let (or cause) other beings to die that I might live? In essence, the hunt goes on not despite the guilt, but because of it. In spite of the danger of making a mountain of a molehill, I have to wonder if perhaps our complete lack of familiarity with the true "costs of living" in our grocery-store world has laid to rest the question of our justification before it's ever even raised.
As a hunter who loves to hunt animals and to eat animals but hates to kill them, I found the author's resolution of this primal dilemma to shed a completely new light on hunting. I recommend this book to anyone who is bewildered by a husband, father, brother, or son that spends way too much time in the woods watching animals while holding a weapon.
... and I'm pleased. The book is definitely more a memoir than a "book about hunting," but Harrington clearly experienced something profound in his annual rabbit hunts with his father-in-law and his friends. Indulged at first as an act of politeness for his wife's family, the annual rabbit hunt in Kentucky becomes the lens through which Harrington views his upwardly mobile, ambition-driven life in D.C. at the Washington Post. As his own son begins to grow older, Harrington articulates a perspective on the transition into fatherhood and the ways it grows from the inside out, taking root in the soil of one's own experience of being fathered.
I got a little weary of the personal biography in the middle portions of the book, but now that I've read the whole thing I do appreciate how Harrington was leading the reader into a perspective on hunting that required such apparent digressions. As a boy from a blue collar family who had worked his way into the East Coast elite, and stepped comfortably into the customs and privileges that attach thereunto, Harrington at first sees hunting as most of his colleagues do--a primitive, cruel, and pathological activity that is completely unnecessary and therefore immoral.
Particularly insightful is Harrington's reflection on the guilt inherent to taking an animal's life as a recreational activity. What justifies such an action? Firing a weapon at a gentle, doe-eyed animal and collecting its bloody, still-warm carcass to cut up and eat seems the height of barbarism. Civilization has moved on.
Harrington mentions the arguments for the necessity of wildlife management, but the real treasure of The Everlasting Stream lies in its insistence that the animals don't care how they die: but we do. Whether it's a coyote or a disease or a charge of buckshot, it matters nothing to the rabbit; but the taking of that animal's life by a human being introduces consciousness into the equation, and therefore accountability--an answer to the question "why". The animal does not ask; we do. Harrington concludes that the "guilt" is precisely what is most important about hunting, precisely because it forces the hunter to question his place in the world--why do I have a right to exist, to let (or cause) other beings to die that I might live? In essence, the hunt goes on not despite the guilt, but because of it. In spite of the danger of making a mountain of a molehill, I have to wonder if perhaps our complete lack of familiarity with the true "costs of living" in our grocery-store world has laid to rest the question of our justification before it's ever even raised.
As a hunter who loves to hunt animals and to eat animals but hates to kill them, I found the author's resolution of this primal dilemma to shed a completely new light on hunting. I recommend this book to anyone who is bewildered by a husband, father, brother, or son that spends way too much time in the woods watching animals while holding a weapon.
December 30, 2022
What is a life well lived?
This is emphatically not the question the author was asking himself the first time he hunted with his father-in-law. More like, what the hell am I doing here?
'Here' in this case was south-central Kentucky, a far cry geographically, but especially culturally, from Washington, DC--the author's home, where "most people believed hunters were sick, violent men." The white, liberal WaPo journalist had married a black woman who hailed from the sticks and Thanksgiving became the annual trip to her home in which her father, Alex, and his friends Carl, Bobby, and Lewis hunted squirrel, as they had done since time immemorial.
Walt was thrust into this cultural milieu whether he liked it or not. Mostly not. Until it grew on him. Slowly and almost imperceptibly, he began to view life with a different perspective, reflecting on his own values and those he wanted to transmit to his children.
What is life well lived?
This book may not answer that question for you definitively, but it will force you to reflect upon the things you hold most dear and why you do so.
Highly recommended. I loved this book.
This is emphatically not the question the author was asking himself the first time he hunted with his father-in-law. More like, what the hell am I doing here?
'Here' in this case was south-central Kentucky, a far cry geographically, but especially culturally, from Washington, DC--the author's home, where "most people believed hunters were sick, violent men." The white, liberal WaPo journalist had married a black woman who hailed from the sticks and Thanksgiving became the annual trip to her home in which her father, Alex, and his friends Carl, Bobby, and Lewis hunted squirrel, as they had done since time immemorial.
Walt was thrust into this cultural milieu whether he liked it or not. Mostly not. Until it grew on him. Slowly and almost imperceptibly, he began to view life with a different perspective, reflecting on his own values and those he wanted to transmit to his children.
What is life well lived?
This book may not answer that question for you definitively, but it will force you to reflect upon the things you hold most dear and why you do so.
Highly recommended. I loved this book.
July 25, 2013
A book about getting to know your in-laws over hunting, and figuring out that hunting isn't some old ritual doomed to the sands of time, but an important way of building friendships and telling meaningful stories. This book in particular is about race and class, and how that does (and often doesn't) effect the relationship between men as they go about hunting rabbits, cleaning rabbits, and cooking rabbits. It's a book about BEING A MAN, which I (mostly) didn't find too off-putting as Harrington discovers that Washington jet-setting leaves something to be desired. In fact, I liked the thoughts about masculinity, race, and class, and they are told artfully with some lyrical prose. Kentucky is beautiful in this book, and I enjoyed reading it.
July 15, 2011
Most books, it seems, allow us to live vicariously through the author's experiences. This book,however, was like reading of my own experiences since I've been rabbit hunting for so many years now with a group of close friends and a bunch of beagles. It's a very thoughtful book - not just about hunting but of the friendship of the men and how they are bound together. His descriptions of events bring to mind so many incidents of our own history - getting snagged by briars, searching for lost dogs, ribbing friends about a missed shot and telling old stories over again and sharing a good laugh. It made me realize just how rich the history of our many years hunting together has been.
January 28, 2014
Never would have I thought a story about rabbit hunting would compel me. The Everlasting Stream (love this title) is of course about so much more than the thrill of the kill, and yet the book is laden with very vivid (read: blood and guts) scenes. What captivated me was the power of the narrative. Readers cannot help but be drawn into the dual worlds that Walt Harrington shares, that of his D.C. life as a top newspaper editor, and the more foreign world of his wife's upbringing in rural Kentucky. This is a powerful book about vulnerability, kinship, and values.
January 8, 2009
Hard to describe just how good this book really is. This is the (nonfiction) story of a rich, white Washington Post journalist, and his annual Thanksgiving day rabbit hunts in rural Kentucky with his black father-in-law and his father-in-law's black friends. A great book. But this is not a discussion of race. Rather, it is an exploration of the "meaning" of hunting and hunters, and of those things in life that truly matter.
April 29, 2012
The book serves as a reminder that enthusiasm for living, the joy of it, no matter our circumstances, is pretty much the game.
If you've ever pondered "what is a life well lived?", then this book is a good place to check out some interesting and meaningful perspectives on that question.
If you've ever pondered "what is a life well lived?", then this book is a good place to check out some interesting and meaningful perspectives on that question.
December 17, 2021
Poetic and thought-provoking, Harrington's stories and musings make you ache for a simpler past left behind and root for the good old boys still holding on to it. What an incredible journey highlighting two conflicting cultures in one man's life.
October 29, 2015
I loved this book. It is a great story of men being men without pretense or sugar coating
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