Solomon Starbucks Striper: A Fish Story About Following Your Dreams

by Roy Rowan

An entertaining and beautifully descriptive fable about the importance of following your dreams. Inspired by Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, author Roy Rowan uses this fictional fish who quits his preppy East Coast school (where he was ostracized because of his coffee-colored stripes) and swims alone, seeking a higher purpose in life than simply filling his gut -- and at the same time trying not to be eaten by bigger fish, a calamnity all of us try to avoid in work, play, and social situations. Solomon Starbucks Striper is a soul-searching, feel-good book that should warm the heart of every reader, fisherman and nonfisherman alike.

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Douglas Lord · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this fictional work (less a short story than a self-help fable), Rowan, formerly a contributor to Time, Life, and Fortune magazines, writes about a “one-in-a-million striper” nicknamed Solo who takes an exhilarating little journey to the self. Encouraged by unlikely mentors (an octopus and a dolphin), Solo leaves “school” and matures from a self-loathing adolescent into an uberfish capable of jumping and speed swimming. The inventive, energetic writing will hold readers’ attention, but the story feels derivative of Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Jules Pfeiffer’s parable A Barrel of Laughs. A Vale of Tears. That similarity in itself isn’t problematic, but Rowan doesn’t explain what inspires Solo’s transformation in the first place, which would have distinguished his book from the other titles. Rowan’s knowledge of fishing (Surfcaster’s Quest) helps the narrative.
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