Silent Seasons

Silent Seasons

Fishing stories by Thomas McGuane, William Hjortsberg, Jack Curtis, Harmon Henkin, Charles Waterman, Jim Harrison and Russell Chatham.


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." Charles Waterman points out that fishing writers' sunsets are generally "more brilliant than those seen by milkmen and grain-combine operators." Jim Harrison argues psychiatric virtues: "Few of us shoot ourselves during an evening hatch."


Silent Seasons has won praise for its assembly of fine writers and the tough stance they take on the ruin of the environment. Besides, as McGuane writes, "You can't say enough about fishing. Though the sport of kings, it's just what the deadbeat ordered."