Here’s the story of the last time I ever went fishing:
I was probably 12 or 13. I was camping with my family. We used to camp a lot because a.) my parents liked camping and b.) it was a relatively inexpensive thing to do on a vacation. I had my own pole. My own little tackle box and everything. My dad showed me how to spool and how to cast. We'd go out in the mornings when there was still dew on the ground. While I enjoyed spending time with my dad, I was never very good at fishing. Not just the technical aspects of the sport, but also the emotional ones. It required a certain sorta calmness of body and mind that I didn’t (and still don’t) possess. I hardly ever caught anything. But that last time I ever went fishing, I did.
Now I couldn’t tell you what kind of fish it was. Back when I was 12 I could probably name you every single dinosaur based solely off the footprint, but throw the most common-looking fish in front of me and ask me the species and I’d probably return with something snarky like "a brown one?" Anyway, I hooked it. I slowly reeled it in. I dragged its floppy body up on the dock. And then I stopped. Something was wrong. The hook had gone all the way through the fish’s cheek, out the side of its face, and into its eyeball. All this gunk was leaking out of the wound. I was horrified. I asked my old man what to do and he calmly said "Well you got to take it out, son." So I held the fish down. It struggled in my hands and under my boot. It fought me as much as a fish on land could. But the hook was in its eye good, snagged onto something deep inside its stupid fish head. I couldn’t get the damn thing out. My dad told me to keep trying, to pull harder, and when I started crying and told him I couldn’t, he got in there and ripped the hook out himself. It took the fish’s eye with it. By now the fish wasn’t struggling anymore. It would still flop a little, but it was weak. Pathetic. Sad. So I grabbed the one-eyed fish and tossed it back into the lake. It didn't swim away. It floated there dead on the surface.
I never went fishing again.
It’s apparent Cameron Pierce has a love for fish. More than a love. It’s like he finds his truth in the rivers and lakes of the Pacific coast. And if that's where he drew the inspiration for these tales, it makes me even question my own aversion to the sport. Not in practice, of course, but more in my understanding about what compels someone to go fishing in the first place. In OUR LOVE WILL GO THE WAY OF THE SALMON fishing is used as metaphor for pretty much everything. To varying degrees, fish are the only through line connecting these disparate tales. Narration, tone, characters, voice – EVERYTHING changes from story to story, but there is always some mention (big or small) of fish and fishing, both in the literal and metaphorical sense.
But that’s not to say the stories are ABOUT fishing exclusively. Or even at all. Some are, of course. Most aren’t. Instead, they’re more about loss. And love. And sadness. And glory. And nihilism. And hope. And every other emotion under the sun. They're more about how I felt when I looked at that dead fish on the last day I went fishing and less about the act of fishing itself. The longest story in here, THE SNAKE OF BORING, was mesmerizing. Truly. I couldn’t put it down if I tried.
I’m not gonna say it any clearer than this: I LOVED THIS BOOK!
Cameron Pierce writes in a way that really hits me in the marrow. He prose here is beautiful. It cuts like a surgeon’s scalpel. There is not a wasted word. I’ve read a few of Pierce's books before, but I haven't in a long while. The last book of his I read was SHARK HUNTING IN PARADISE GARDEN (which is ironic because I believe that was his first) and even then, that was about 4 years back. While those were classifiably more "bizarro" than this one - which certainly has its surreal moments, though they're understated in comparison to the characters and their beckoning catharses - I don’t recall the actual ART of his writing in those other books affecting me like it did with this one. Maybe my memory is faulty. Or maybe it’s that this particular collection really tapped into something that I can connect with. Relate to. And that the execution with which he paints these worlds feels, at least to me, like breathing clean air.
So although one might be inclined, I’m not going to say the word masterpiece right now because such notions should be saved for the posthumous (please don’t die, Cameron!) or at least for those who are retiring or ready to fade into obscurity (please don’t stop writing either!) but when that day comes when that final word is wrought from this writer’s fingers, there’s no way this book will not be lauded as one of his best.
Read it.
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Fantastic collection of stories!
I'm pretty picky about my "bizarro" literature. I love weird stuff but not TOO weird just for the sake of being weird. I'm never going to buy A** Goblins of Auschwitz.But I read The Destroyed Room by Pierce and absolutely loved it so I wanted to find more of his stuff similar in tone to that story. I think this collection was the perfect choice for me.Weird and surreal but not overly so. Not much in the way of gore and sex. No splatterpunk here.Just a lot of well written, powerful, emotional stories that sometimes interconnect slightly (like Alice Hoffman's Red Garden but so much better and less boring) or not so slightly and sometimes don't at all.Bob had me cracking up, as did some other stuff for sure. I loved the choose your own adventure story near the end! But I like bleak things and man was that bleak.I wish a few of the stories were a bit longer. Most of all though, I wish Cameron Pierce had a dozen more books like this I could read. I know I'll be buying more of his stuff, I Just don't know what yet. Maybe I'll give Die You Doughnut Bastards a chance.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2015
Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2018
I'm pretty picky about my "bizarro" literature. I love weird stuff but not TOO weird just for the sake of being weird. I'm never going to buy A** Goblins of Auschwitz.
But I read The Destroyed Room by Pierce and absolutely loved it so I wanted to find more of his stuff similar in tone to that story. I think this collection was the perfect choice for me.
Weird and surreal but not overly so. Not much in the way of gore and sex. No splatterpunk here.
Just a lot of well written, powerful, emotional stories that sometimes interconnect slightly (like Alice Hoffman's Red Garden but so much better and less boring) or not so slightly and sometimes don't at all.
Bob had me cracking up, as did some other stuff for sure. I loved the choose your own adventure story near the end! But I like bleak things and man was that bleak.
I wish a few of the stories were a bit longer. Most of all though, I wish Cameron Pierce had a dozen more books like this I could read. I know I'll be buying more of his stuff, I Just don't know what yet. Maybe I'll give Die You Doughnut Bastards a chance.
But I read The Destroyed Room by Pierce and absolutely loved it so I wanted to find more of his stuff similar in tone to that story. I think this collection was the perfect choice for me.
Weird and surreal but not overly so. Not much in the way of gore and sex. No splatterpunk here.
Just a lot of well written, powerful, emotional stories that sometimes interconnect slightly (like Alice Hoffman's Red Garden but so much better and less boring) or not so slightly and sometimes don't at all.
Bob had me cracking up, as did some other stuff for sure. I loved the choose your own adventure story near the end! But I like bleak things and man was that bleak.
I wish a few of the stories were a bit longer. Most of all though, I wish Cameron Pierce had a dozen more books like this I could read. I know I'll be buying more of his stuff, I Just don't know what yet. Maybe I'll give Die You Doughnut Bastards a chance.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2015
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2016
