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jdintr 's review for:

5.0

Maclean has an American masterpiece here. It is a shame to pigeonhole this into "regional" American literature--as I have done for the past twenty years since I saw the movie.

There is a spirituality to these tales beyond that imposed by Norman's Presbyterian preacher father: nature's nirvana found in reading the mind of a fish to pick just the right fly, or looking out from a mountain top to spot a faraway fire and basking in awe. And Destiny, for Maclean, is the power of the story that he finds himself in.

Maclean's prose works on all levels as well, shifting from rowdy to tragic to sublime almost effortlessly. The beginnings and endings of the three stories featured here are particularly strong.