Silent Seasons

Why fish? The answers laid forth in Silent Seasons are wildly divergent. Thomas McGuane cites both "the longest silence," and the opportunity to encounter a bass that runs with "the solid, irresistible motion of a Euclid bulldozer easing itself into a phosphate mine." William Hjortsberg admits to writing about fishing "for the money," while Russell Chatham remembers each detail as if it were intended for one of his paintings. To Jack Curtis, "The fish is a flash of beauty and action enticed from an unfathomable element"; to the late Harmon Henkin, angling "has no greater claim to spiritual purity than sex, dope, or any other recreation in contemporary America."