The Radical Radiance of the Fishing Fly

                            THE RADICAL  RADIANCE

                            OF THE FISHING FLY

Lewis K Schrager is a playrwrite, and this is his first novel. He has already won awards for his short stories, and now he demonstrates his talents in a captivating full-length story. In The Radical Radiance of the Fishing Fly, he crafts a story about David agreeing to go on an Alaskan flyfishing outing with his older brother Larry. David and Larry never had a close relationship, even during their school days when Larry was not only a good athlete, but he was loud and obnoxious in all social gatherings. He seemed to always want to be the center of attention. When Larry would see David’s sense of disapproval for his behavior, Larry would only make it worse. Larry went on to become a successful business man, and David became a research physician at NIH. As adults, they had little to do with each other. Larry lived in Philadelphia where they were raised and David lived in Bethesda, Maryland, close to NIH.

Prior to the fishing trip together, David had come down with an advanced case of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Larry hated going to hospitals and seeing doctors, and he had refused to get evaluated for his worsening cough. However, when it was so severe he could barely breathe, he accepted David’s referral to a pulmonologist at Johns Hopkins. The cancer was diagnosed and radiation treatments were begun. Larry also underwent several sessions of chemotherapy, and about a year later, he was declared cancer-free.

It was Larry’s wife who suggested the fishing trip, something Larry loved and dreamed about during his treatment, but it David had never been interested in fishing. In thinking about the trip and their lifetime discomfort with each other, David wrote, “I realized that all this cogitation was irrelevant. Mellowed or not, I never would have agreed to go on this trip if not for Larry’s cancer.”

It took four plane flights to get from the airport in Philadelphia to their remote fishing experience in Alaska. It was a small group of fishermen and fisherwomen, which led to wonderfully developed characters and complicated interactions with one another. A passionate love story was part of the novel. During their travel to the fishing site, the group encountered a group of hunters, all of who were regressed to an early teen level of maturity. That provided a common enemy for the fishing group and provided worthy subplots for the author. Ultimately, this was a story about Larry struggling with his battle with cancer and his continued efforts at achieve a complete recovery, and a story about the brothers efforts at rapprochement.

Since I know nothing about fly fishing, I asked for some help from a neighbor who is an expert fly fisherman and who has taken many flyfishing trips to various continents. He enjoyed the story and gave me a technical review of the fly fishing described by the author. Perhaps the author could correct some technical flaws regarding casting, what flies to use, when to use a net, and what knots are used, but those changes would not impact the quality of this story. This was a very good novel and it gets a very strong 5/5 rating from me.