This powerful story of one angler's adventures in the Great Smoky Mountains is a descent into wildness, a meditation on the landscape bathed in greenness and truth, and the discovery of a people living -- on the spine of time.
From the solace of mountain streams to the frenetic bustle of Gatlinburg, one of Tennessee's great tourist towns, this memorable journey summons readers to confront the joys and sorrows of life through a new understanding of our place in nature and its process.
Harry Middleton had to endure hardships to find the queen mother of all trout streams in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. He had to live through treacherous mountain roads, the cloud of airborne industrial toxins that shrouds the range for most of the year, an occasional blast of lightning, and, worst of all, a helping of rancid potato salad at a roadside diner. Like Norman MacLean in "A River Runs Through It," Middleton makes fly-fishing a religion with its own vision of nirvana, and if it takes an occasional descent into the nether regions to attain it, the author isn't afraid to supply the grisly details. This graceful, funny memoir belongs in every angler's library.
"In On the Spine of Time, Harry Middleton takes the reader on an unforgettable fishing trip, full of quirky characters, magical streams, and the unique moods of ancient mountains and their hidden world. This book measures up tot he extraordinary country it chronicles." ---Paul Schullery, author of Mountain Time and Searching for Yellowstone.
"Middleton writes with humor and compassion" ---Publishers Weekly
This powerful story of one angler's adventures in the Great Smoky Mountains is a descent into wildness, a meditation on the landscape bathed in greenness and truth, and the discovery of a people living -- on the spine of time.
From the solace of mountain streams to the frenetic bustle of Gatlinburg, one of Tennessee's great tourist towns, this memorable journey summons readers to confront the joys and sorrows of life through a new understanding of our place in nature and its process.
Harry Middleton had to endure hardships to find the queen mother of all trout streams in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. He had to live through treacherous mountain roads, the cloud of airborne industrial toxins that shrouds the range for most of the year, an occasional blast of lightning, and, worst of all, a helping of rancid potato salad at a roadside diner. Like Norman MacLean in "A River Runs Through It," Middleton makes fly-fishing a religion with its own vision of nirvana, and if it takes an occasional descent into the nether regions to attain it, the author isn't afraid to supply the grisly details. This graceful, funny memoir belongs in every angler's library.
"In On the Spine of Time, Harry Middleton takes the reader on an unforgettable fishing trip, full of quirky characters, magical streams, and the unique moods of ancient mountains and their hidden world. This book measures up tot he extraordinary country it chronicles." ---Paul Schullery, author of Mountain Time and Searching for Yellowstone.
"Middleton writes with humor and compassion" ---Publishers Weekly