Ghost Trout [Paperback]

Literary Nonfiction. Essays. GHOST TROUT is a series of narratives and essays that chronicle the search for the rare Humboldt cutthroat trout, and rivers and streams and their relationship to people and birds and dogs and the human condition. Pieces of the past are mingled with lives and deaths and a long-ago memory of a dance performed by the daughter of the California poet, Joaquin Miller.

GHOST TROUT is more than a collection of essays--it's a glimpse into what makes us tick. --Green Apple Books, San Francisco

Another marvelous collection, this one filled with tiny explosions of narration and exposition. A book you'll keep picking up to find something new that touches on your life. --Don Christians (KWMR FM radio)

Like a canvas that is painted with precise strokes, this set of narrative moments freezes your attention on universal images. --Russell Chatham

It's an extraordinary piece of writing. I know nothing about fly fishing. Many of the landscapes are unfamiliar to me (though a few I recognize). Yet I found myself deeply immersed and captivated and moved. The beauty of the language, its restraint, the deep and plainspoken thought--it's almost like a book length poem, or a kind of koan. The people spring to life in startlingly few words. The image of your dying neighbor and his single light bulb stubbornly burning will stay with me forever. I'm so glad [Hill] wrote it and so glad that I read it. I hope it finds its way into people's hands, because it deserves to be read. -Jesse Kellerman


GHOST TROUT is a wonderful book. It is poetic, but better than that the book is honest and the voice is trustworthy. -Louis Phillips