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Summary
Summary
Welcome to Travers Corners, the Lake Wobegon of fly fishing, where the most celebrated thing that ever happened was Herbert Hoover stopping for gas. Yet interesting things do happen in Travers Corners, all the time, and this remarkable first collection of stories by Scott Waldie builds a true sense of a small town and the wonderful characters who fill it: Jud, who left to travel the world and returned to build boats and fly fish; Sarah, an emigrant from New York City who needed to find some peace; her uncle Sal, the local bartender with the Brooklyn accent and Yankee baseball cap; Dolores, the town beauty of years past and present; Junior, the general store owner who has a thorough knowledge of fly fishing but no discernible skill; and many, many more.
Written with warmth, wit, and a shrewd eye for rural characters, "Travers Corners" will remind some readers of Winesburg, Ohio, and others of A River Runs Through It. And for fly fishers anywhere. Travers Corners will be a second home.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The fictional Montana town of Travers Corners, pop. 317, is a hub of fly fishing and the setting of this charming debut collection of eight stories. Waldie builds his tales around character, creating a small community of homespun folk who are quintessentially American and just a bit eccentric. Jud is a middle-aged boatbuilder and fishing guide, a perfectionist and dawdler with a generous heart and an eye for a prank. Junior runs the only general store and knows a lot about fishing but never catches any fish. Dolores is the town's beauty queen whom everyone has been in love with at least once. Uncle Sal, the Brooklyn transplant, is the bartender at the Tin Cup Bar and Cafe; he's been accepted by the townsfolk even though he's never cast a fly rod. Henry is Jud's best friend, also a fishing guide with deep thoughts and an appreciation of simple pleasures. In "Word Gets Around," gossip spawns rumor that ignites truth and finally makes history in a hilarious fish story about the one that got caught. "Three Yahoos" is a nostalgic yarn of teenage innocence, testosterone and the unpredictability of life. "Travels" finds that a burned-out musician and a worn-out rancher have a lot in common: both famous in their own worlds, each is envious of the other. Waldie's stories are noteworthy for their simplicity, affection and freshness. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A debut collection that offers a brilliant image of small-town life in Montana. Each of these eight stories revolves around dry-fly trout fishing on the Elkheart River, near the small town of Travers Corners that's been around for 120 years or so. While this kind of terrain has been well and sufficiently rendered before (Norman Maclean comes to mind), Waldie makes it fresh. His most moving piece is ``Travels,'' about a worn-out, despairing musician who rents space on the Elkheart River for his mobile home, sits and fishes, strums his guitar and is slowly, quietly, believably rejuvenated, deciding that ``there is nothing on God's green earth that could make this place any better.'' Other tales focus on Judson C. Clark, who returns after a spell in the outer world and sets up a boatyard for building his own handcrafted float boats. Jud's expertise as a guide to the best fishing edges and pools on the Elkheart are frequently called upon, while Waldie deftly uses the obsession for fishing shared by his characters to reveal the inner nature of visitors and townsfolk alike. As Jud says: ``Fly fishing isn't a sport; basketball is a sport. . . . Fly fishing isn't a parlor game; Monopoly is a parlor game. . . . Fly fishing really is: one of life's most pleasant pastimes.'' Does that reduce a passion to a pastime? Not at all. In these stories, Jud takes an elderly blind man fishing in a heavy rain. He also recollects his first lover, and the sight of her swimming in the river. Meanwhile, a titled, wealthy descendant of D. Downey, one of the town's founders, arrives from England to look into his past by fishing with Jud. Hardly anything happens, but by book's end it's hard to resist the impulse to pack up and head for Montana. Sheer heaven on a trout stream.
Booklist Review
Take equal portions of Lake Wobegon Days and Winesburg, Ohio, add a dash of A River Runs through It, and you have Waldie's wonderfully entertaining stories about Travers Corners, Montana, which exists only on these pages but, while you read, at least, is a real place with real people, such as Herbert Hoover and John Steinbeck, both of whom visit. A tie that binds the stories together is fly-fishing for trout in nearby rivers and creeks, which all the main characters frequently do, so that readers who happily suffer from fishing fever well may be enthralled and, when they discover there are only about 50 pages left, feel let down when they realize the book and the place are soon to expire. Lots of nonfishers will probably feel the same, for like the mythical Elkheart River that runs through Travers Corners, these stories could and should flow on forever. --Jon Kartman
Library Journal Review
The title locale is a small Montana town near the picturesque Elkheart Mountains and Carrie Creek, a flyfisher's paradise. It's the fictional setting for nine engaging stories graced by witty homespun characters. Jud Clark, a boat builder and fishing guide, is the central figure who interacts with the other townsfolk and tourists seeking his angling services. Other remarkable characters include a septuagenarian anthropologist fishing from a boat through some fierce rapids, a likable misfit named Quintin who catches a big trout using a cane pole for a rod, and a Bentley-driving Brit who shows up in the last chapter and provides an ancestral link for several residents. Recommend, especially for Montana public libraries.Will Hepfer, SUNY at Buffalo Libs. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.