A nourishing, often eloquent book by nature writer Middleton (The
Earth Is Enough, 1989), which brings to bubbling life the wonderful
characters and streams he encounters in the majestic Great Smoky
Mountains of North Carolina. Along the way he does a little
fishing. "Angling is simply the best excuse. . .for investing as
much time as possible in the mountains," writes Middleton. The
actual fishing lore here is minimal; the emphasis is on the odd
assortment of people, the natural and local history, and the
ecology and imperiled beauty of the region. Once, along the banks
of the Oconaluftee River, deliriously ill from food poisoning,
Middleton was rescued by Exie Sopwith, a mountain woman who claimed
to cure a "cough by eating little bits of spiderwebbing rolled into
tiny balls." Though he cherishes solitude in the blue,
cathedral-like Smokies, he also shares water with a fly-fishing
fanatic, a Wall Street executive who attends A.A. meetings because
he enjoys making contact with "other troubled human beings." Then
there's Ambrose Noel, who wanders Hazel Creek with a prayer wheel,
chanting an old Doors song; a young Cherokee who tells him, "You
get education, jobs, housing. . . and we get our own trout water.
Fair's fair"; Arby Mulligan, a self-styled John the Baptist who, as
a practicing phrenologist, carries calipers and a rule, and heads
the Owl Creek Gap Church of Universal Harmony. The descriptions of
forest and rivers and the national park system in the
800-square-mile region include all the numbers - 50 species of
mammals, 200 resident species of birds, 70 Species of fish, "more
species of trees than in all Europe" - but are also touched with a
resonance that brings to the writing something approaching poetry.
A book to savor and to linger over. (Kirkus Reviews)
The entrancing new work by Harry Middleton, the author of the
popular The Earth Is Enough. This is a fisherman's appreciation of
the wonderfully wild Great Smoky Mountains which straddle the
Tennessee-North Carolina border, and includes lyrical accounts of
eccentric people, evanescent landscapes and unexpected climates
among the permanence of the mountains.
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