The Longest Silence: A Life in FIshing

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars | 647 ratings

Price: 21.83

Last update: 01-09-2025


About this item

From the highly acclaimed author of Ninety-two in the Shade and Cloudbursts comes a collection of alternately playful and exquisite essays—including seven collected here for the first time—borne of a lifetime spent fishing.

"Thomas McGuane writes about fishing better than anyone else in the history of mankind." (Jim Harrison, New York Times best-selling author of Legends of the Fall)

The 40 extraordinary pieces in The Longest Silence take the listener from the tarpon of Florida to the salmon of Iceland, from the bonefish of Mexico to the trout of Montana. They introduce characters as varied as a highly literate Canadian frontiersman and a devoutly Mormon river guide and address issues ranging from the esoteric art of tying flies to the enduring philosophy of a 17th-century angler to the trials of the aging fisherman.

Both reverent and hilarious by turns, and infused with a deep experience of wildlife and the outdoors, The Longest Silence sets the heart pounding for a glimpse of moving water and demonstrates what dedication to sport reveals about life.


Top reviews from the United States

Neil D. Parry
5.0 out of 5 stars A classic - required reading for anglers.
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2010
McGuane has a gift for language, and a deep love for fishing, and these conspire to produce one of the finest collections of fishing essays produced to date. I was hooked, no pun intended, from the opening Authors notes, in which McGuane writes of the modern weekend fisherman in less than flaterring terms as "lip rippers" and the mindless, and careless way in which fisherman wish to "drain the pool" with no concern or thought for the conservation of, or care for this fish itself; an opinion I share with the author, but have never been abble to express quite as elegantly. From there the book is a series of beautifully written accounts of fishing trips, fisherman, rivers, creeks and the fish themselves. Mcguane is clearly a conservationist at heart, as much in love with protecting his catch as much as fishing for it, as it should be.
This book will, or perhaps has become a classic among anglers for it's rich prose and themes, along with McGuanes own style and flair that bring his writing to live, be it fiction or not.
Philip Carl
5.0 out of 5 stars Angling Soul Food
Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2008
Rather than give you a "macro" review, I cover my favorite chapters of this book in sort of a micro-review fashion:

Back in Ireland - is as pointed and sharp as a tack. The story is as much about a time as it is about a place. McGuane reminds us that the intersection of time and space is unique as a snowflake hitting the warm ground.

Twlight in the Buffalo Paddock - McGuane takes us into a seemingly sterile (e.g., there's no fish in those casting ponds) and off-beat, urban setting in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. He points out the art as well as the pointlessness of false casting to plastic-ringed targets at a time when fly fishing is being passed up by faster, more extreme sports like skateboarding and BMX. But even in this setting, McGuane finds his perfect moment. It's a moment that draws many fly anglers back to their sport: "The ponds have gone silver. The emptiness around the few members who remain seems to make their casting more singular, more eloquent."

Henry's Fork - The author fishes the Henry's Fork of the Snake River with guide Mike Lawson. The essay turns into a bit of a rant with McGuane calling Idaho's Department of Fish and Game to the carpet. And like metaphoric bad-dog, rubbing their nose in a big pile of silt they left in the river.

World-Record Dinner - reads like a minor treatise on fly fishing the flats for mutton snapper. The mutton snapper as McGuane describes it -"not at all handsome, with its large and vacant-looking head" - earns more than respect - "difficult to deceive and very spooky" as an angler's quarry.

The Sea-Run Fish - is the most sharply pointed satire of the book, with a laser-like focus on an entire ontology of misdirected fly anglers. McGuane breaks them down into: The Rich, Old and New, Corporate Groups, Time Sharers, Spongers (which he claims membership to), and The Poacher. With some amount of after thought, he includes Steelheaders ("The first group, distinctly, are the original California steelheaders emanating from the Bay Area."), lodge denizens, and the roaming sponge.

I loved his take on fishing lodges: "The lodge has the unenviable job of maintaining living facilities, waterborne transport, and guides, as well as some level of communications and emergency medical capability in remote places. The logistics underlying this can resemble what in military parlance is called a task force, but it enables one to arrive with clothes and tackle only, and depart with no responsibilities for maintenance and other ordeals of the off-season, a real luxury. The downside is that it's not cheap and you never know who you'll be bunking with.... and if you travel long enough to so-called destination angling, you will meet some unparalleled Twinkies and monsters."

I could go on citing stories and pulling quotes from this book. But, instead I'll finish with 3 words of advice - get his book.
Greg H.
4.0 out of 5 stars Fishing memoir with literary class
Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2017
I skipped through several of the chapters because I wanted a read on trout fishing but I was surprised I enjoyed many of the chapters on the Keys and salmon fishing so much. The author is an English professor so the writing style is a challenge to absorb at times. Still an enjoyable read if not a page turner.
The Garden Interior
5.0 out of 5 stars You Will be Hooked.
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2013
If you both like to read and like to fish, this is a book that must be on your shelves, and in your backpack. It is a truly lyrical book about the mysterious, I might almost say mystical, sport of angling. McGuane's literary output over a lifetime has been consistently excellent, with such classics as the early, Florida-centric Ninety-Two in the Shade, and Panama. And then came the later, Montana-centric classics of Nobody's Angel and the Bushwahcked Piano. But The Longest Silence is in a class of its own: a loving, measured and extremely nuanced paean to the great meditative and athletic sport that fishing is. A great pairing for this book is Norman Maclean's A River runs through It. These are guy books, mostly, and perfect for guy book clubs. And they are perfect for readers of The Garden Interior, too, because they have something interesting in common. Fishing is not really about catching a fish, of course, except in a most primitive and simplistic sense; it is about the interior life of the fisherman and what is going on in his heart and mind during the long silences between intermittent bouts of angling action. In just the same way, gardening is about the interior life of the gardener more than it is about a trophy flower or fresh tomatoes on the table. McGuane is on our wavelength, as you will see from the first page of this lyrically beautiful book of thirty-some essays written over thirty years about fishing all over the world. You will be hooked.
Gerald Allen
5.0 out of 5 stars It came Quick
Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2023
Book looks great
Bob Saunders
5.0 out of 5 stars Better prose than Gierach
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2011
Lovers of fishing and outdoors essays will enjoy this book. While McGuane doesn't have the laid-back humor of Gierach, he has a great eye for detail and his prose immerses you into his scenes.
As an example, here's an excerpt I like from a story about fishing in early spring:

"This was a wonderful time to find yourself astream. You didn't bump into experts. You didn't bump into anybody. You could own this place in your thoughts as completely as a Hudson Bay trapper. The strangely human killdeer were all over the place, human in that their breeding activities were accompanied by screaming fights and continuous loud bickering. When they came in for a landing, their wings set in a quiet glide while their legs ran frantically in midair. The trees in the slower bends were in a state of pick-up sticks destruction from the activity of beavers. A kingfisher flew over my head with a trout hanging from its bill. I came around a bend without alerting three more geese, floating in a backwater, sound asleep with their heads under their wings. I decided not to wake them. I ended my day right there."

Great cure for cabin fever, and very rereadable.

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