Literate Matters: Good books come from near and far

I read more than 100 books a year, but fewer all the time by authors I get a chance to talk to, or those who know someone in my circle.

So when I get the chance to dig into books by friends, or those written by folks who know people I know, the world draws in a bit closer.

Such is the case with a couple of new reads.

Tom Conlan’s new book “Gentle Spirits” landed earlier this summer, and is a delight to navigate, with its epic scope set against some majestic backdrops, both familiar and a bit farther afield. I know Tom through his contributions to the Walloon Writers Review, which I help to edit.

The story opens with the birth of Samuel Firestone Thompson, “born under the sign of fire, on a day in deep December,” as his mother dies soon after. His father, Firestone Thompson, raises the boy between the woods and rivers of Northern Michigan and the sailing and shrimping of Georgia’s coastal islands from the 1950s through the 1970s.

Each era provides Conlan not only with family context as Samuel moves from athletic teen to introspective adult.

“Gentle Spirits” hinges too on Marie and her daughter Angelique. Together with father and son, they move through both geography and time as their shared stories take the shape of the extended families that rise from both ash and intention. In fact, “Firestone had found Marie in a time of need, and her Angelique had found Samuel on the beach. The twining of their paths had been no accident.”

Conlan’s reliance on details about food and drink, sport and geography are both useful and properly measured, though at times more specific than necessary. Still, the story unfolds in arcs both epic and closely-observed.

While not someone I know directly, Christopher Schaberg, the former student of a friend, professor of English in New Orleans, and accomplished angler recently published “Fly-Fishing.”

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Part of Duke University’s “Practices' series,” Schaberg’s book opens with scenes from his Michigan youth, him angling for sunfish and bass. In a move that his friends surely envied, Schaberg even convinced his parents to homeschool him so he could fish. He admits, “in truth, my weekday education rapidly became one-third book learning, two-thirds solitary fishing.” We should all have been so lucky.

Eventually a committed fly angler, Schaberg explains that while fly-fishing has become “a mainstay” in his life, “it always leads to farther-flung realms of thought,” something a good many introspective fly anglers can appreciate.

He amplifies these ideas later with stories of his years in graduate school in Montana, where he also found a kindred spirit in Greg Keeler, one of his creative writing instructors. Their friendship will remind others of how passions often develop in the company of like-minded pals.

Additionally augmented by his impressions of the places he casts a line — the birds or the dark nights, or the trees along the bank of a favorite river — Schaberg’s observations and conclusions are insightful without being overbearing, the latter too often found in books on angling and fly angling in particular.

Schaberg speaks skillfully to his audience, leavening the lessons learned with references not only to “A River Runs Through It,” but to Richard Brautigan and the classic rivers of the West in ways that convey his passion while avoiding the sort of snobbery that plagues less considerate observations.

To be sure, “Fly Fishing” isn’t likely to lure readers from outside the subculture, nor are the series’s other titles, aimed at audiences for “Running” or “Juggling.” Nonetheless, Schaberg’s ruminations ring true for those who know when to cast a Trude and when to cast a Trico.

Yes, over the course of the many books I read each year, I’m lucky from time to time to find titles that come from folks I know, or from folks who know folks I know. Luckily for me, “Gentle Spirits” from Tom Conlan and “Fly-Fishing” from Chris Schaberg land in just these waters.

Good reading.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Literate Matters: Good books come from near and far