A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean

First published: 1976

Type of plot: Family

Time of work: 1937

Locale: Western Montana

Principal Characters:

• Maclean, the respectable eldest son, an experienced Forest Service crew chief, narrator of the family story
• Paul, Maclean’s hard-living younger brother, a newspaper reporter, gambler, and expert fly fisherman
• Maclean’s father, initially a Scotch Presbyterian minister, retired at the end of the story

The Novel

A River Runs Through It compresses the events of several summers into one, the summer Norman Maclean’s brother Paul dies. In establishing background, Maclean explains the importance of fly fishing as the main activity through which the males of the family related to one another. Fishing also provided spiritual education. By describing their fishing trips and related events during the summer of 1937, a much older Maclean seeks to understand the tragedy of his brother’s death, to pay homage to him, and to show appreciation for his father’s love and wisdom.

A River Runs Through It is written in first-person limited narration. Maclean the narrator is the protagonist, his character derived from the author’s memories and reflections. He tells the story chronologically, often referring to characters in terms of their familial roles, as “my father,” “my brother,” “my mother-in-law.” In addition to the three male Maclean characters, there are two female Macleans: the mother, wife of the minister, and Jessie, Maclean’s wife. Jessie’s family provides two other significant characters, her brother, Neal, and her mother, Florence.

The story reads as if it were a highly stylized personal essay. As an introduction to the family members and their culture, Maclean begins, “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.” Even though these are minister’s children, they receive nearly equal instruction in spiritual concerns and in fly fishing. Paul’s fishing ability early transcends the ordinary, causing Maclean to feel great respect for his younger brother. As men, Maclean and Paul are both successful in their own ways. Maclean has done well in school and in the Forest Service. Paul is a newspaper reporter who does not allow work to interfere with his fishing.

As the events of the summer begin, Maclean asks Paul, as a favor, to go fishing with him and his brother-in-law Neal. Paul agrees out of respect for Maclean’s mother-in-law, who has requested the expedition. Neal is a newly returned Montana native whom Paul accuses of having become a lowly bait fisherman. As boys, the brothers had taken it for granted that Jesus would have been a fly fisherman. Before enduring Neal’s company, Paul persuades Maclean to slip away for a day on their own special river, the Big Blackfoot.

Once they begin fishing, Maclean describes Paul as almost miraculous in his fishing ability, so amazing that a woman gazes at him raptly while her husband keeps repeating “Jesus.” That evening, Paul becomes so drunk and disorderly that he is jailed along with his Indian girlfriend; when Maclean goes to the jail to get them, the desk sergeant warns that Paul’s excessive drinking is chronic and that his gambling is out of control. Thus we see Paul travel from a state of grace to a drunken failure in one brief interval, a pattern he continues until his death.

The fishing trip with Neal and Old Rawhide, a prostitute he brings along, follows in the same vein with some comic relief. Maclean and Paul experience the purity of fishing. Neal and the woman forget to bring a fishing pole, steal beer to go with their whiskey, become drunk, and fall asleep in the sun totally naked. The two are badly sunburned. Maclean and Paul must get rid of Old Rawhide and return Neal to the women of his family as quickly as possible. Maclean’s wife and her mother become angry with Maclean for not keeping Neal out of trouble. Maclean is forgiven by the women, but they remain upset, and he decides to go fishing again, this time with Paul and their father. This is the Maclean men’s last fishing trip together. Soon after, Paul is beaten to death, presumably because of the gambling debts.

The Characters

Maclean’s characters are drawn from his family, in terms of the significance their lives. Initially, Maclean’s father instills in his sons a sense of wonder and the conviction that God is to be found in nature and in the four-count rhythm used in fly fishing. While this strict father cannot overcome Paul’s defiance of his biblical teaching, he cannot ignore Paul’s beauty either.

The problem is that while Paul achieves grace and beauty in fishing, he is unable to attain peace and acceptance in his personal life. In addition to his drinking and gambling, he prefers exciting relationships with women to long-term ones. The narrator’s uneasiness over Paul’s prodigal yet forceful character forms the conflict at the heart of the tale. His own tough but integrated character is revealed as he struggles to fish successfully and to keep peace with his relatives. Family communication is carried out in the typical Scottish manner, cryptic and often unfinished, leaving Maclean troubled.

Paul’s character is complex and taciturn. On fishing trips, he tells personal anecdotes. In one such story, Paul is so raptly watching a jackrabbit in his headlights that he misses a turn and smashes his car. He claims to have been lonely and to have found company in the jackrabbit, but Maclean suspects that the accident may have resulted from alcohol. Maclean does not know if he is supposed to be amused or concerned, but, as with subsequent problems, he proves unable to be his “brother’s keeper.” Paul refuses even to acknowledge offers of help. After the debacle with Neal, Paul does show his love for Maclean by suggesting another fishing trip and by including their father, who had already retired his fishing gear.

After Paul’s death, their father suggests that by making up a story and the people to go with it, Maclean will be able to understand the events of his life and why they happened. The father goes on to explain that the people we love and should know are the very people who “elude us.” By telling the story, Maclean creates an elegy, not only to Paul but also to his father’s power as a believer who loves his sons deeply.

Maclean’s mother, wife, and sister-in-law are portrayed as strong Scottish women who defend family honor and who also act as peacemakers when needed. These women are caregivers. Maclean’s mother shows near-adoration of Paul despite his failings. Yet the women are not expected to fish or even to know much about fishing and so are not central to the story, although their love and approval are clearly important to Maclean.

Critical Context

Norman Maclean began writing A River Runs Through It, his first novel, after he retired from a highly respected career as a teacher at the University of Chicago, where he was a noted Aristotelian critic. He received honors for excellence in undergraduate teaching three times. His knowledge of literature, his humanity as a teacher, and his critical expertise gave him the background to write about his life in Montana. The imagery of Maclean’s prose style and the subject matter of A River Runs Through It did not attract commercial publishers, however. The University of Chicago Press took on the book, the first fiction it had ever published, out of respect for Maclean’s university career.

The novel was an immediate critical success and went through printing after printing as word of its quality spread. It became a serious contender for the Pulitzer Prize. Critics compared the novel to Ernest Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River” and The Sun Also Rises (1926) and to Henry David Thoreau’s A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). Maclean’s novel attracted many film offers, none of which suited Maclean, who wanted artistic control to a degree unknown in the movie industry. Finally Robert Redford, a respected advocate of Western literature and film, persuaded Maclean to let him direct the film version, but Maclean died before the film was finished. It was released in 1992 and received three Academy Award nominations, winning an award for best cinematography. A River Runs Through It is a modern classic, bringing increased recognition to the deep regard that Western American people feel for the land and its resources.

Sources for Further Study

Browning, Mark. “’Some of the Words Are Theirs’: The Elusive Logos in A River Runs Through It.” Christianity and Literature 50, no. 4 (Summer, 2001): 679-688. Difficulty in human communication may be central to understanding Maclean’s novella.

Dooley, Patrick. “The Prodigal Son Parable and Maclean’s A River Runs Through It.” Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature 58, no. 2 (Winter, 2005): 165-175. Discusses failure within the Maclean family; yet the father, like God, unconditionally loves his wayward son.

Foote, Timothy. “A New Film About Fly Fishing—And Much, Much More.” Smithsonian 23, no. 6 (September, 1992): 120. Effectively tells of the novel’s unique origination, history, and transition to film.

Ford, James E. “When Life . . . Becomes Literature’: The Neo-Aristotelian Poetics of Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It. Studies in Short Fiction 30, no. 4 (Fall, 1993): 525. For readers who want to understand how Maclean’s background as a critic shapes his fiction.

Johnson, Don. “The Words Beneath the Stones: Salvation in A River Runs Through It.” Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature 14, no. 1 (Fall, 1996): 301-307. Argues that Maclean broadens the Calvinistic view of salvation to consider the role of art. Provides background information and shows how Maclean fictionalized the story.

MacFarland, Ron. Norman Maclean. Western Writers Series, No. 107. Boise, Idaho: Boise State University Press, 1993. Brief, authoritative introduction to Maclean as a Western writer.

MacFarland, Ron, and Hugh Nichols, eds. Norman Maclean. Lewiston, Idaho: Confluence Press, 1988. A chronology and collection of Maclean’s speeches and essays, two interviews, and criticism. Includes major essays in critical analysis and commentary by Wallace Stegner, Glen A. Love, and Wendell Berry.

Weinberger, Theodore. “Religion and Fly Fishing: Taking Norman Maclean Seriously.” Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature 49, no. 4 (Summer, 1997): 281-289. Contrasts the Maclean family and their society. The prominence of fly fishing is foundational for interpreting the book.

Womack, Kenneth. “’Haunted by Waters’: Narrative Reconciliation in Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 42, no. 2 (Winter, 2001): 192-204. Uses interviews of and lectures by Maclean to emphasize that art transcends tragedy.