Trash Fish - by Greg Keeler (Paperback)

About the Book

Time and again, as his life unfolds to reveal his failings and foibles to those around him--Keeler's academic parents, his genius brother, his motley friends--he returns to the fish, which cast him a lifeline of their own.

Book Synopsis

Trash Fish is the story of a boy who gives himself over to his obsession with fish as an escape from the trials of growing up. Time and again, as his life unfolds to reveal his failings and foibles to those around him, he returns to the fish, which cast him a lifeline of their own. Laugh-out-loud funny yet sardonically raw to the bone, Keeler tells a whole whirlpool of a story--the women, the Peace Corps, the teaching jobs, the marriage and children, and, of course, the rod and reel. Eventually, however, his serene fishing life becomes contaminated with real-world influences: a polite society of angling purists insists that he choose between flies and bait, while his alter ego (and nemesis) begins to use fishing as an excuse to cheat on his wife. Ultimately, Keeler's fisherman must acknowledge that he can't escape down the river bend, and that in order to experience true love, he must accept the complexities within himself and within the people on land around him.

Review Quotes

"Greg Keeler has written an original, soul-baring, funny, sad, sweet, profane memoir." -- Valerie Hemingway

"Greg Keeler is funny, insightful, and refreshingly unpretentious--the real deal." -- Kathleen Tyau

About the Author

A noted poet, playwright, musician, songwriter, artist, and fisherman, Greg Keeler is a professor of English at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, where he lives with his wife.