Lou Ureneck's BACKCAST in Washington Post

Skimming the Surface of Troubled Waters
By Michael Blumenthal,

Washington Post, Thursday, January 17, 2008; Page C11

BACKCAST: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska

By Lou Ureneck
St. Martin's. 286 pp. $24.95

Many a husband, this reviewer included, vows never to divorce after having children. And many a father who breaks that vow has sought to heal the wounds inflicted on his children. One of those concerned fathers is Lou Ureneck. Following his divorce, he attempted to mend fatherhood's torn fabric by taking his 18-year-old son, Adam, on a fly-fishing trip to Alaska's Kanektok River.

His new book, "Backcast," which describes that experience, invites comparison with two American classics: Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It," a magical novella that evokes nature's miracles and its human counterparts while relying heavily on its author's experiences as a fly fisherman; and Robert Pirsig's equally unforgettable "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," a work of nonfiction that, under the guise of describing a 17-day motorcycle journey across the United States by an unnamed father and his 9-year-old son, yields a profound philosophical meditation on the idea of quality.

Yet, in the end, every book must stand or fall on its own; and, in places at least -- particularly when it comes to describing the natural world -- Ureneck seems up to the task. Here he is, for example, describing Mount Oratia's 4,700-foot rise over Alaska's Kagati Lake: "It was snow covered. The lake itself is shaped like a set of lungs, two deep-blue lobes separated by a long sternum of purple and green tundra and low silver-green bushes. The sternum ascends quickly on its easterly, or upstream, end into a mountain, Ata-ai-ach, and then descends to rise up again into a higher and unnamed mountain."

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