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Outdoors & Nature |
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Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska
written by Lou Ureneck
Studio : St. Martin's Press
by St. Martin's Press
Release Date : 2007-09-18
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
Released : 2007-09-18
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780312371517
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 15 reviews)
List Price : $24.95
Our Price : $5.75
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Product Description |
While father and son fishing trips can be the stuff of American legend, they can also turn out to be the stuff of anger, love and self-discovery. In his memoir of a fishing trip through the Alaskan wilderness, Lou Ureneck brings to life the struggle to reclaim the trust of his teenage son, Adam, following his divorce. Told against the backdrop of the Alaskan wilds, Backcast is the remembrance of a fishing trip that carried a father and son from the mountains of Alaska to the Bering Sea. Along the way, nature transforms from friend into foe, and their struggles are played out against the poignant emotional battle raging between the two as they descend the river headed toward confrontation. On their journey, the two encounter nature’s dangers — bears, violent river currents and ruthless, punishing weather — as well as the hurts that exist between them, the reasons for divorce, the absence of a father and the withheld love of a son. Dipping his hand into the river of his own life, Ureneck recounts his own fatherless childhood, the influence of his mother’s boyfriend who helped him learn to fish, and the realization that he himself had done the one thing he always promised himself he would not do: He ended his marriage in divorce. Part adventure story, part reconciliation with life’s unexpected turns, and part commentary on the healing power of nature, “Backcast” explores the world of a man confronted by the hard choices divorce can bring to create a moving meditation on fatherhood. |
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Good book, though not all about fishing and Alaska |
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I liked this book. I heard Lou on NPR and decided his book sounded interesting enough to read. While I was drawn to it for its tales of rafting in Alaska, what I found most interesting were his tales of growing up. His father abandoned the family when he was 7 and his mom moved he and his brother around to many different houses and apartments. Many of his anecdotes made me relect on situations in my own past. Once, another kid's dad spanked him for some minor infraction. When he told his mom, a hot-tempered person, she decided to do nothing, since she rented her shop from the man. This made me furious. The book also made me sad as he described the breakup of his marriage and his strained relations with his grown son. The Alaska adventure is enjoyable too, though it seems in retrospect to take up only a fraction of the book. |
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A Fishing Tale & more. |
A most enjoyable read. When first picking it up I thought I was going to be exposed to a boys own adventure tale of a floating & fishing trip in remote Alaska. The book certainly delivers this but even moreso it descibes the complexity of family relationships as seen through Lou's own experiences as a son and father.
As an aussie it provided me with some insight to what it was like growing up in middle america in the 50's and 60's. I found Lou's accounts of his own childhood and his interpretation of relationships with his mother, & father figures, as rewarding as the descriptions of he & his son hooking monster sock-eye salmon. |
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Great Story of Life |
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I truly enjoyed this book, since it was real, involved father son relationships, and included fishing in Alaska. As a father of 4 sons, I related reasonably well to the struggles the father and son encountered during this trip. I have been to Alaska on a similar trip with both friends and a son and the descriptions of the float and wildlife were very accurate. I thought the hostility of the son toward his father, who was the leader of the trip, cook, fishing guide, fly tier and financier was a little overdone. Having never been through a divorce, maybe I don't relate to this part of the relationship. The father did more than his share to bridge the gap with what appeared to be little or no effort or reciprocity by the son. They had spent many hours together before the trip, so this seemed a little over done. |
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Father and Son Unfurled |
The author invites you to come along on a rafting / fly fishing trip down Alaska's Kanektok River. There's excitement in the air in the opening chapter as the author and his teenage son hop planes from Philly to Anchorage then to Dillingham and finally dropped by bush-plane into the Alaskan wilderness - ON THEIR OWN. To dial up the adventure meter here, the East coast duo decides to cover the 100 plus mile float by themselves. Add to that a shoe-string budget for equipment and a first time ever trip to the wilds of Alaska, and well, I sensed it would be interesting.
And yes, these guys experience the thrills and dangers of the untamed Alaskan wilderness first-hand. But the greater adventure Lou Ureneck has in mind for us in Backcast isn't catching wild silver salmon on a fly-rod, but the adventure of growing up, becoming a man, and the demands of being a good father.
Backcast alternates settings between Alaskan wilderness and Ureneck's various homes which range from South Jersey up north to Maine. At least a third to a half of the book tells Ureneck's life story. How he grew up. The importance he places on fishing as an escape from an unstable family life and as a common bond with his step-father. And lastly, living through the stress and anguish of a crumbling marriage.
Ureneck vows to not repeat the mistakes of his natural father and his step-father. As the story closes, we are presented with a father who has made tough choices but refuses to throw in the towel on his son. The struggle here to maintain the love and respect of his college-bound son, is no less in scope to what it takes to survive the raw, Alaskan wilderness. At the end of Backcast, I'm left feeling that his father is certainly up to the task.
Ureneck delivers a well-told, and extremely personal story of a man's journey to confront a childhood filled with temporary homes and temporary father figures. The struggle against the Alaskan elements sometimes pale in comparison. |
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Not quite what I was hoping for... |
I had heard Ureneck interviewed on NPR and the book sounded like an outdoor adventure during which the author/father and his son took a trip to Alaska and had the opportunity to work on their relationship. Having taken my own teenage son on a fishing trip in Alaska, I was looking forward to an outdoor adventure and insight on a father/son relationship. More than half of this book, however, was the author's discussion of his own largely fatherless childhood in Newark, NJ. (I guess titling the book "Backcast: a miserable, divorced father analyzes his dysfunctional childhood in Newark" wouldn't sell as many books.
I found it interesting that even when there were "teachable moments" with his son in Alaska when he could have shed light on the depths of care and concern that he had for his son, Ureneck seemed to miss them entirely and only let out the anger instead of the fear behind it so that the two could actually understand each other better. This served only to further isolate them from each other. The lesson, however, was not lost on me. |
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