On the Spine of Time by Harry Middleton

On the Spine of Time by Harry Middleton

This powerful story of one angler's adventures in the Great Smoky Mountains is a descent into wildness, a meditation on the landscape bathed in greenness and truth, and the discovery of a people living -- on the spine of time.

From the solace of mountain streams to the frenetic bustle of Gatlinburg, one of Tennessee's great tourist towns, this memorable journey summons readers to confront the joys and sorrows of life through a new understanding of our place in nature and its process.

Harry Middleton had to endure hardships to find the queen mother of all trout streams in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. He had to live through treacherous mountain roads, the cloud of airborne industrial toxins that shrouds the range for most of the year, an occasional blast of lightning, and, worst of all, a helping of rancid potato salad at a roadside diner. Like Norman MacLean in A River Runs Through It, Middleton makes fly-fishing a religion with its own vision of nirvana, and if it takes an occasional descent into the nether regions to attain it, the author isn't afraid to supply the grisly details. This graceful, funny memoir belongs in every angler's library.

The Earth is Enough, The Brilliant Land, and Rivers of Remembering are among Harry Middleton's critically appreciated works. The Friends of American Writers Award, the Outdoor Writers Association of America Best Book Award, and the Southeastern Outdoor Press Best Book Award have all been bestowed upon him. At the age of 43, he died unexpectedly in 1993.