This book is a semi-autobiographical collection of three stories by the author, Norman Maclean.
"A River Runs Through It"
"A River Runs Through It" concerns the Macleans, a Presbyterian family in early 20th century Montana whose views on life are filtered through their passion for fly fishing. The novella is presented from the point of view of older brother Norman who goes on one last fishing trip with his rowdy and troubled younger brother Paul in an attempt to help him get his life on track. After a brief introduction of his early life, most of the action takes places in the summer of 1937 and both Norman and Paul were in their early 30s.
The novella is noted for using detailed descriptions of fly fishing and nature to engage with a number of profound metaphysical questions, and is recognized as an American classic. In a review for the Chicago Tribune, critic Alfred Kazin stated: "There are passages here of physical rapture in the presence of unsullied primitive America that are as beautiful as anything in Thoreau and Hemingway".
"Logging and Pimping and 'Your pal, Jim'"
"Logging and Pimping and 'Your pal, Jim'", tells the story of Norman Maclean during the summer of 1928 (Maclean was 25), while in graduate school, of working as a logger for the Anaconda Company at a logging camp on the Blackfoot River. At the end of previous summer working at the camp (1927), he made an arrangement to work the following summer with the best logger in the camp, Jim Grierson.
Grierson would work the logging season at a camp, then find a town with a nice Carnegie Public Library, get a library card, find a whore, preferably from the South, and spend the off-season reading, pimping, drinking, and screwing.
"USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky"
"USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky", tells of part of the summer of Maclean's seventeenth year, 1919. He spent that summer, as he had the previous two, working for the United States Forest Service, this time at Elk Summit, Idaho, west of Blodgett Canyon. Approximately 34 miles (55 km), walking distance, almost due west-northwest of Hamilton, Montana, near White Sand Creek, and north of East Fork Moose Creek.
Working for the U.S. Forest Service, in a very remote part of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness portion of the Selway National Forest (now Clearwater National Forest), Maclean had to put out wildfires, build trails (with sledge hammer, chisel and dynamite), pack horses and mules, spend time alone on lookout duty at 7,424 feet (2,263 m) Grave Peak, and string telephone wire.
Elk Summit Work Center: [show location on an interactive map] 46°19′36″N 114°38′51″W / 46.32667°N 114.6475°W / 46.32667; -114.6475 (46.3265874, -114.6476053),[7] elevation 5,748 feet (1,752 m). The work center is located at the junction of Horse Creek and Hoodoo Creek, north-northwest of Hoodoo Mountain and north-northeast of Hoodoo Lake.