Rolling Back the River

by Paul Guernsey

"Rolling Back the River is a lyrical and unflinching journey through wild streams, wild hearts, and the wilderness of loss. With humor, heart, and hard-earned wisdom, Paul Guernsey reminds us that the rivers we love—and the lives we build—can never flow backward." —Joshua Caldwell, fly fisher, director of the feature film Mending the Line

While fly-fishing on a remote river in southern Argentina, a veteran outdoor writer from Maine finds himself swept into a cascade of bizarre events, all connected to an enigmatic, billionaire environmentalist and his cosmopolitan twin nieces.

Vincent Mapp, former adventure-traveling editor-in-chief for an international fly-fishing magazine, now leads a life centered around teaching at a small Maine environmental college and obsessively fishing his home waters for just about anything that swims. But after his wife of many years abruptly upends his world by ditching him for someone who doesn’t fish all the time, Vincent decides to accept one last far-flung assignment as a fly-fishing journalist, and he heads off to Patagonia with the goal of catching some of the few remaining, fast disappearing, Argentinian landlocked salmon—all of which are descended from fish originally introduced to Argentina from Maine. Even at the literal end of the earth, however, and exploring an enchanted landscape of devastating beauty, Vincent finds himself unable to avoid conflict. He arrives at an isolated ranch on the Perca River just as a mysterious predator has begun attacking pets and livestock—and it’s not long before he experiences his own terrifying nighttime run-in with the creature. He also discovers that the reclusive American owner of an adjacent ranch—multi-billionaire wildlife conservationist and avid fly-angler J.T. Allman—has been commissioning some unsettling environmental experiments on his vast property. One serious complication in Vincent’s attempts to get to the bottom of all the Allman holds a simmering 20-year-old grudge against him for events connected to his time as a magazine editor. Turbulent waters become increasing treacherous after Allman’s cultured, equestrian, and attractive twin nieces, unaware of their elderly uncle’s animosity toward Vincent, invite him to a bizarre festival on the grounds of the Allman estate. Through it all, Vincent and his faithful fishing guide, Sancho Nelson, try very hard to catch some salmon.
 

226 pages, Paperback

Expected publication February 17, 2026

About the author

Paul Guernsey's third and most recent novel is "American Ghost," which was published in August, 2017. From his haunted farmhouse in rural Maine, Paul edits and publishes The Ghost Story: Ghost Stories in Literature, Folklore, and Contemporary Culture (http://www.TheGhostStory.com), and administers a pair of international short story contests called The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award (biannual) and The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition. In addition to his novels—which include “Unhallowed Ground,” runner-up for a PEN/Nelson Algren Fiction Award, and "Angel Falls"—he has written extensively on the outdoors, especially on the sport of fly-fishing. His nonfiction book on fly-fishing, "Beyond Catch & Release: Exploring the Future of Fly Fishing," was published in 2011. Paul also has held just about every kind of writing job imaginable, including newspaper reporter, magazine editor, travel journalist, and foreign correspondent. He currently teaches writing at Unity College: “America’s Environmental College.”