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Brook Trout and the Writing Life
The author and fisherman presents a work that is part memoir, part outdoor literature, and part author's meditations
111 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1999
267 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 24, 2017
Beautiful and eye-opening, Nova shares memories of fishing, fatherhood and writing books.
July 31, 2025
Considering I have seemingly nothing in common with the author, it's odd to me how much I was moved by this book. A testament to his acumen with the written word.
February 4, 2018
A very quick and easy read. Left me wanting more, but beautiful nonetheless. I'll want to explore Vermont more, while I have a special person there, but it's a long way from me. Nova's secret to persistence is clear. Relaxing in the middle of the worst. A refusal to despair. I loved those final thoughts.
May 24, 2020
I didn't expect the brook trout to take up so much space in this book, but they are first in the title. Since my childhood pleasure in fishing didn't follow me into adulthood, I had a hard time relating to the way the author sees it as so central. But this is well written, and has some good thoughts on marriage.
August 17, 2017
Bought this on Amazon at the same time I bought a second outdoor blanket to replace the one I left in Brooklyn.
April 14, 2019
Now shelved under inspiration <3
November 29, 2024
Unusual and beautifully written.
May 18, 2011
Craig Nova is an American novelist who has enjoyed a long career as a creative writer. He has authored twelve novels and holds the position of distinguished professor in the Humanities at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Behind that literary public face, hidden within the folds of his family life, he has also cultivated and realized the role of a passionate fly fisher whose first love is the brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis.
Like his generational colleagues, Thomas McGuane and W. D. Wetherell, Nova has risen to prominence through his art of the novel, yet his most accessible book to some readers may very well be the side project, the little fishing book. For McGuane, this coalesced as the essays collected in The Longest Silence; for Wetherell, this became rendered in his portrait of a waterway, Vermont River. Here now for Nova, in a reissued and expanded edition featuring a forward by Ann Beattie, is Brook Trout and the Writing Life. Part fish story, part memoir, the book is at its center a thoughtful exploration of the overlapping threads of connection writers who come to fly fishing (or visa versa) perceive and experience within the greater realm of family life.
Nova’s fish story attracts interest in part because of the time frame involved. Nova came relatively late to fly fishing. He was already established in New York City, living the life of a young writer, when a woman who would later become his wife introduced him to her family’s country property; a little corner of Eden that held a trout stream. His own Eve gifted him his first fly rod and this instrument, like a pen or a typewriter, gave him not just knowledge, but a new kind of way to render experience, one that opened up a new vista within his personal life. Nova the writer found a refuge for rumination, for catharsis: the power of free time bathed in a stream’s flow that, in his case, sustained him through literary lean times.
Sustained success arrived and two daughters followed. Nova’s experiences with his girls, related here, provides a rare look into an area heretofore understudied by much of the fly fishing canon’s best literature. Enough with the father and son story, oft told, now worn down so far as to become cliché. Here, at last, is the father and daughter fly fishing dynamic. And even when Nova digresses in a chapter about rowing, we find in this other freshwater sport another connection to that fundamental process, the flow, which informs fishing, writing, and life.
This edition, new from Eno Publishers, is an expanded version of a book first published in 1999 by The Lyons Press. The new material fits in seamlessly; there are no sections that read as if sutured on for the sake of elaboration or discursion. Nova reveals his writing skill by folding in the additional passages so well that the surface of the page remains as unbroken as the surface of a spring creek pool. Not a ripple can be detected; Nova is a lapidarian literary artist.
One subjective thought also arises after reading Brook Trout and the Writing Life. Nova’s book fits well into what could be named The Northeast School of fly fishing writing. One will not encounter the big sky testosterone tales of a pot smoking alpha male with a thick thatch of beard; the tough guy who guides millionaire clients to massive steelhead in between pounded cans of domestic beer. Instead, you will find quiet natural beauty, emotional sensitivity, family values, maybe a glass or two of red wine, and therein an even stronger model of a man; an individual who can be a husband, a father, a lyrical writer, as well as one very talented fly fisher who excels in the sport’s most nuanced facets.
Like his generational colleagues, Thomas McGuane and W. D. Wetherell, Nova has risen to prominence through his art of the novel, yet his most accessible book to some readers may very well be the side project, the little fishing book. For McGuane, this coalesced as the essays collected in The Longest Silence; for Wetherell, this became rendered in his portrait of a waterway, Vermont River. Here now for Nova, in a reissued and expanded edition featuring a forward by Ann Beattie, is Brook Trout and the Writing Life. Part fish story, part memoir, the book is at its center a thoughtful exploration of the overlapping threads of connection writers who come to fly fishing (or visa versa) perceive and experience within the greater realm of family life.
Nova’s fish story attracts interest in part because of the time frame involved. Nova came relatively late to fly fishing. He was already established in New York City, living the life of a young writer, when a woman who would later become his wife introduced him to her family’s country property; a little corner of Eden that held a trout stream. His own Eve gifted him his first fly rod and this instrument, like a pen or a typewriter, gave him not just knowledge, but a new kind of way to render experience, one that opened up a new vista within his personal life. Nova the writer found a refuge for rumination, for catharsis: the power of free time bathed in a stream’s flow that, in his case, sustained him through literary lean times.
Sustained success arrived and two daughters followed. Nova’s experiences with his girls, related here, provides a rare look into an area heretofore understudied by much of the fly fishing canon’s best literature. Enough with the father and son story, oft told, now worn down so far as to become cliché. Here, at last, is the father and daughter fly fishing dynamic. And even when Nova digresses in a chapter about rowing, we find in this other freshwater sport another connection to that fundamental process, the flow, which informs fishing, writing, and life.
This edition, new from Eno Publishers, is an expanded version of a book first published in 1999 by The Lyons Press. The new material fits in seamlessly; there are no sections that read as if sutured on for the sake of elaboration or discursion. Nova reveals his writing skill by folding in the additional passages so well that the surface of the page remains as unbroken as the surface of a spring creek pool. Not a ripple can be detected; Nova is a lapidarian literary artist.
One subjective thought also arises after reading Brook Trout and the Writing Life. Nova’s book fits well into what could be named The Northeast School of fly fishing writing. One will not encounter the big sky testosterone tales of a pot smoking alpha male with a thick thatch of beard; the tough guy who guides millionaire clients to massive steelhead in between pounded cans of domestic beer. Instead, you will find quiet natural beauty, emotional sensitivity, family values, maybe a glass or two of red wine, and therein an even stronger model of a man; an individual who can be a husband, a father, a lyrical writer, as well as one very talented fly fisher who excels in the sport’s most nuanced facets.
March 31, 2011
The metaphor of fly fishing--even to someone like me who's never held a line--is compelling, sensitive, vivid. Nova hooked me from the beginning, tugging his truths from deep waters, connecting his experiences to nature and the flow of life.
May 17, 2016
Thoroughly enjoyable, and accessible to people not as fond of fishing as I am. I haven't read his novels, but this little memoir was so nice I might have to start... or at least hope he writes some more about fishing.
November 20, 2010
A definite "good read" for those are interested in fly-fishing literature.
June 2, 2014
I love the stories and the fishing...I will be reading the rest of Craig's books now!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews