Time for another edition of Dylan Tomine’s Book of the Week Wednesday. This week’s pick is also one of my favorites.
Trash Fish: A Life by Greg Keeler, Counterpoint Press.
“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry” is something of a review cliché, but in this case, it’s 100% true. This is one of the few books that literally cracked me up and brought me to tears. If Chatham, McGuane and Leeson are the Big Three of modern fishing classics, Keeler has written what’s surely a post-modern classic, filled with bits of dialog, verbal snapshots and satiric wit, all combining across a lifetime story arc. Did I mention celebrities? Guest starring Muffet Hemingway, Richard Hugo, Richard Brautigan and Gary Snyder, with cameos by Jeff and Beau Bridges, Clint Eastwood, Jack Hemingway and others. All held together by Keeler’s exceptional humanity, honesty and love of fishing. Every time I pick up Trash Fish, I can’t put it down until I’ve read it through. It’s that good.
