From Publishers Weekly
All 17 of the angling pieces Frazier (On the Rez) has written over the last 20 years have now been preserved in one volume. Attentive readers of the New Yorker over the last two decades will have caught most of these pieces before, but anglers and essay fans (not to mention Frazier devotees) should be glad to revisit gems like "An Angler at Heart," his 1981 profile of a Manhattan tackle dealer. Frazier's sharp eye and self-implicating wit is at work in these charming but unsentimental pieces, whether he's describing his penchant for mayflies in "It's Hard to Eat Just One," a family fishing trip in which his kids prefer a drainage ditch to the trout stream in "A Lovely Sort of Lower Purpose," or a Central Park pond where the fishermen are as likely to catch empty potato chip bags as catfish in "Anglers." Many of these essays are, in fact, about fishing in the city, and Frazier often wrings more suspense and meaning from a muddy stream that runs "From Wilderness to Wal-Mart" than some outdoor adventure writers get from an expedition through Nepal. His paeans to the angling experience set the standard in this subgenre, yet will amuse many who've never set foot in a tackle shop.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
So what did Frazier do for a break while researching and writing major works like Great Plains and On the Rez? Obviously, he was off fishing.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Near the beginning of "From Wilderness to Wal-Mart," an essay describing, from source to mouth, a stream that runs through a Montana town in which the author once lived, Frazier confesses: "I can watch flowing water for any amount of time. Also, I like to mess around creeks." As it turns out, those are excellent credentials for writing absorbingly about fishing and related topics. Frazier makes no claims at all to being the world's most knowledgeable angler, and that's only prudent. He returns from far too many of his excursions with nothing to show for his efforts but the memories of the country through which he passed. That's enough. Though he may not so much as wet a fly, Frazier unfailingly communicates an infectious fascination--a passion, really--for woods and water and fish. It's hard to imagine a more heartfelt book, or one more lovingly rendered. Dennis Dodge
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Frazier is a great storyteller." -- Laura Shapiro, Newsweek
"Reading [Frazier] one thinks of such American originals as John McPhee, Wallace Stegner, Edward Hoagloand, Peter Matthiessen and Evan Connell." -- Ron Hansen, The Washington Post Book World
"Reading [Frazier] one thinks of such American originals as John McPhee, Wallace Stegner, Edward Hoagloand, Peter Matthiessen and Evan Connell." -- Ron Hansen, The Washington Post Book World
Book Description
In The Fish's Eye: Essays about Angling and the Outdoors, Ian Frazier explores his lifelong passion for fishing, fish, and the acquatic world. He sees the angler's environment all around him-in New York's Grand Central Station, in the cement-lined pond of a city park, in a shimmering bonefish flat in the Flordia keys, in the trout streams of the Rocky Mountains. He marvels at the fishing in the turbid Ohio River by downtown Cincinatti, where a good bait for catfsh is half a White Castle french fry. The incidentals of the angling experience, the who and the where of it, interest him as much as what he catches and how. The essays (including the famous profile of master angler Jim Deren, late proprietor of New York's tackle store, the Angler's Roost) contain sharply focused observations of the American outdoors, a place filled with human alterations and detritus that somehow remains defiantly unruined. Frazier's simple love of the sport lifts him to straight -ahead angling description that are among the best contemporary writing on the subject. The Fish's Eye brings together twenty years of heartfelt, funny, and vivid essays on a timeless pursuit where so many mysteries, both human and natural, coincide.
About the Author
Ian Frazier lives in Montclair, New Jersey. He is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, among other publications. His previous books include Great Plains, On the Rez, Family, and Coyote V. Acme.
